


Odd Stars

by starkaryen



Series: Hannibal Cre-Ate-Ive Prompts and Challenges [5]
Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal (TV), Spacedogs - Fandom
Genre: Adam finds him and takes care of him, Again, Blow Jobs, Bottom Nigel, Eventual Smut, First Kiss, First Meetings, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Nigel is wounded, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Podfic Welcome, Post-Canon, SpacedogsSummer, they're neighbors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-19 20:54:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7377016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkaryen/pseuds/starkaryen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was supposed to be a quiet Friday night. Nigel hadn't expected to spend that night bleeding out in the landing of his nice American apartment, and Adam just wanted to eat his dinner.<br/>But life was funny that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok. Let's see ^^
> 
> · First of all, I am not an expert on Asperger's. I've read a little and obviously watched the movie, so I've tried to hold onto that. That said, I AM SORRY if during this fic there's something I've portrayed wrong about Asperger's. Not my intention at all, but I'm aware it's possible, so... Yes. I'm so sorry.
> 
> · This fic is set post both movies, but obviously changing things from the canon. Not only the obvious things (Nigel dying or Adam moving away), but also, I sort of took some of the scenes or elements from the movies and applied them here. But at the same time, it's like both movies had happened, so... there's that.
> 
> · This will be based in the '[Spacedogs Thread](http://starkaryen.tumblr.com/tagged/spacedogs-thread/)' I did on twitter (and then moved to tumblr) a few months back (hence on "based")
> 
> · The fic is finished, and I'll be publishing it throughout this #[SpacedogsSummer](http://hannibalcreative.tumblr.com/post/146267759919/join-us-in-spacedogssummer-what-is) week :)
> 
> · I have a playlist that I created while writing this, [here](http://8tracks.com/starkaryen/odd-stars) on 8tracks, and [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/kate_angel/playlist/2zIuyww0KilasUv62aso2Z) on spotify.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH to [Llewcie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Llewcie/pseuds/Llewcie) for being a wonderful beta and endure my constant questions and whines while writing this. I probably would've abandoned this without her support, so... THANK YOU♥♥
> 
> Sirenja made [this amazing gifset](http://sirenja-and-the-stag.tumblr.com/post/146850296398/odd-stars-by-starkaryen-im-nigel-i-just-moved) for the fic! (no spoilers ^^)
> 
> I made this [aesthetics](http://starkaryen.tumblr.com/post/147148556178/odd-stars-spacedogs-fanfic-it-was-supposed-to-be) for the fic ^^

It was supposed to be an easy job. A simple transaction; meet the client, close the deal for the amount of money they had agreed on beforehand, deliver the product, and that would be it. Nigel had even been about to not go that night. After all, he wasn’t even in charge of that part of the business. But his friend and partner couldn’t go, so he had to. Their club had slowly climbed in reputation and popularity, both in the legal business, and the not so legal one. So Nigel had to be present for that transaction, as small or insignificant as it supposedly was.

That’s why Nigel had never, not in a million years, expected to end his night with a knife below his ribs. By the time he arrived at his apartment – the much nicer one he could afford now rather than the shithole he had started out when he had first moved to America -, there was blood soaking through the jacket he was wearing.

He tried to climb the stairs up to the first floor carefully, but when he reached the top he was wheezing, and he felt _so_ cold... Since when had May gotten so cold?

Nigel grabbed the banister to try to give himself a last push, just one last step up the stairs and he would be on the landing. He tripped over the damn step, falling on his good side thanks to the grip on the handrail. And then, lying on the floor just a few steps from his door, he barked a laugh that turned into a grunt when it elicited a jab of pain from the wound across his entire torso.

Life was funny that way. Nigel had escaped Romania after a near-death experience, he had built a new life in another country, another continent, he had managed to forget Gabi… and now he was going to die in the stairs of his nice American apartment.

“Uhm. Are you okay?”

Nigel cracked his eyes open and realized that there was a person looking down at him. No, not _any_ person. He recognized those bright blue eyes: it was his neighbor, the man that lived across the hallway. He had only seen him a few times, whispered hellos and good mornings as Nigel returned from work and the other went to start his day, he assumed.

Nigel gave him a crooked smile and tried to lift his right hand in a gesture that meant to be reassuring, while he pressed his left side with the other in an attempt to hold onto his life a little longer.

“I’m okay… don’t call the cops,” Nigel said, and he hadn’t meant it, but it came out as a plea.

“I wasn’t going to,” the man said, no emotion in his voice. “Do you need help? You’re… you’re bleeding. A lot.”

Nigel frowned, but he wasn’t about to question the man’s strangely calm voice tone. He tried to remember his name, but he couldn’t. He had told Nigel when he had met him, and his name was on his apartment’s door; Nigel had seen it many times when he had passed by… But what was it?

“Yes,” he said, and then, as if another person had taken over his voice completely, he added, “Please.”

The man left a paper bag that looked like groceries on the floor, and when he returned to him, he grabbed Nigel’s right arm. When Nigel tried to stand with his help he cried out, the movement pulling directly from the wound.

“On the other side…” Nigel asked the man, and prayed that the man wouldn’t get scared in that moment.

When he circled him and tried it again, Nigel managed to get up by grabbing the handrail again and with the neighbor’s help. But as soon as he did, he knew it hadn’t been such a good idea, feeling light-headed and his vision blurring when he took a couple of steps towards his door.

“Shouldn’t you go to a hospital?” the man’s voice sounded beside him, a little strangled at having to support Nigel’s weight.

“No…” Nigel heard himself say immediately. “No hospitals…”

He felt himself weakening, and then everything faded to black.

****

It was supposed to be a quiet Friday night. Adam had finished at work and had gone straight to do some grocery shopping, as he did every single Friday. He had bought his favorite mac and cheese, chicken, broccoli, and because he was feeling adventurous and cheerful, he bought a couple of cans of soda. He was looking forward to eating his dinner and then spending the rest of the night reading or looking through his telescope, since that night the sky was clear. He was even excited about having to make the decision, one or the other.

When he reached his apartment, he hadn’t made his decision yet, and he wouldn’t get to make it. As he was fishing his keys from his pocket, he heard a thump behind him, and he turned around to find that there was a man sprawled in the floor. Adam took a step towards him and he corrected himself: not _any_ man, it was _the_ man that lived across the hall. The man called Nigel.

He had moved in four months back, and Adam remembered vividly the first and one of the few times they had talked. Adam had gone to the building’s washing room, since it was laundry day. And so, he was wearing an old, too big jacket and nothing underneath when a curse suddenly startled him. Adam turned to look at the man that had appeared through the door, cigarette hanging between his lips as he bent over to pick up the clothes that had fallen from a poorly closed duffel bag.

Adam stayed still, looking at him while he gathered the clothes. And then, he looked up and a crooked grin curved his mouth.

“I wouldn’t mind a little help, you know?”

“Okay,” Adam said, staring at the man’s cheeks to be able to see his face.

“Can… _you_ help me?”

“Oh,” Adam said, and he nodded. “Of course.”

Adam left his washing machine and crouched beside him and they picked up the clothes. He wondered where this man was from, since he had a thick accent, probably European. And he wondered, too, why he hadn’t seen him before in the building.

The last thing Adam took from the floor, however, were a pair of underwear, and that interrupted his thoughts. He lifted them as he pursed his lips.

“Don’t worry darling, they’re not used. I’m just washing all my clothes,” the man said with a grin before snatching them from his hand and putting them with the rest of the clothes.

They stood, and the man put the duffel bag on top of the washing machines before turning and extending a hand to him. Adam took his hand after a pause. He usually avoided touching people he didn’t know, but somehow he didn’t mind it when he felt the man’s palm against his.

“I’m Nigel. I just moved to 1B.”

“Oh! I’m Adam. Adam Raki, and I’m 1A. You’re my neighbor!” Adam said, smiling and fixing his eyes on the man’s shoulders.

“Don’t you say? Well, I hope you have salt and sugar, then,” the man called Nigel said, chuckling.

Adam frowned, not sure why he wanted to know if he had those things in that moment. None of them would be helpful with the laundry.

“I… I do. I have salt and sugar.”

“Great, then we’ll be good neighbors. Anyway. Nice to meet you, gorgeous, but I gotta-”

“My name is Adam,” he repeated, slower, in case the man hadn’t heard him the first time and that’s why he was calling him that.

“All right,” Nigel answered, huffing out a laugh before turning to start dividing his clothes.

Adam wasn’t sure what his expression meant, so he just nodded and kept putting his things into the washing machine, satisfied with how that exchange had gone.

Now, Adam tipped his head at the curious scene in their hallway, and then he noticed that the left side of Nigel’s body was darkened- No. It was coated in blood. His shirt, his jacket, and even his hands and forearms, now that Adam realized.

The man laughed and then groaned, and Adam went towards him, looking down with curiosity. He offered his help, which Nigel accepted after a brief pause. But again, nothing happened like Adam expected. Because once he had managed to help the man up, he started guiding him to his door and, right after telling him that he didn’t want to go to a hospital, the man fainted.

He was a bit taller and broader than Adam, so when his entire weight fell over his side, Adam tried to hold him, but he couldn’t. The body slipped to the floor with another thump, and right then, Adam felt a little scared for the first time.

He looked at his neighbor, and at the blood that kept flowing from a wound he couldn’t see, and he looked around him. The man had asked him not to call the police, and Adam was actually okay with that idea. He had never liked the police, and much less after his last incident with them. Nigel had said no hospitals, which Adam figured included not calling an ambulance. And he didn’t want to have to talk to other neighbors, other people… So he had an unconscious man bleeding in the hallway, and he needed to do something.

Once, when he was a kid, Adam had fallen and gotten a pretty nasty cut on his hand. His father had taken him to the hospital immediately, despite Adam yelling that he didn’t want to, because he hated doctors and nurses and how rude people were in the hospital’s waiting room. The next day, he had started reading books and watching videos about treating and healing cuts, how to stop hemorrhages, how to sew a wound… The next time, he had told himself, he wouldn’t have to go to the hospital.

This situation wasn’t exactly a cut on his hand, but he decided what he was going to do, and so he looked away from the man and fished the keys to his apartment from his pocket. He opened the door, recovered the bag with his grocery shopping and put it on the counter, took his jacket off and hung it on the hanger. When he returned to the man, he crouched next to him. He patted one of his pockets, and then did the same with the other and both the clinking sound and the feeling of something metallic told him he had found the man’s keys. He took them, leaning over his body careful not to touch him so he wouldn’t hurt him, and then he opened the door to Nigel’s apartment and peeked inside.

The apartment was, in theory, identical to his. The reality that, they couldn’t have been more different. The furniture was completely different, a mix of things that looked new and others that looked older than anything Adam had in his apartment. But not only that; in the space where Adam had two couches, a TV and his telescope, Nigel had a couch and a coffee table that couldn’t fit any more magazines, with a pizza box and an empty beer can on top of everything.

Adam crumpled his nose a little, but he turned his attention to the bleeding man, and crouched beside him again, determined to carry out the plan that had formed in his head. The first thing he needed was to move the man, so he tried to lift him, but as Adam had guessed, he was too heavy and he would probably hurt his back doing it this way. So he decided to take him by his armpits, and then he started pulling him into the apartment. The short hallway inside – which was also as his own except for the decoration and the color of the walls - seemed to stretch out forever, and Adam needed to make a few stops, panting before he had reached the bedroom. Once he did it, though, he suddenly realized the worst was yet to come: he had to hoist his heavy neighbor onto his bed.

Adam whined, eyeing the entrance of the apartment. Why couldn’t that have been another quiet Friday night…

****

Nigel cracked an eye open at the same time that a groan climbed out of his throat. He tried to move, and immediately a burning pain hit him like a whip on his left side. The following sound that he made wasn’t a groan, but something much more like a whine.

“You shouldn’t move, or you could open your stitches.”

Nigel turned to the source of the voice, and he found a man- No, his neighbor, sitting upright on a chair in front of his bed. He sipped what looked like milk from a glass he had in his hand. Nigel frowned, looking around him and confirming that he was in his bedroom.

“Stitches…?”

The question came at the same time that his hand skimmed over his side, remembering the fight, how wrong the deal had gone… His fingers made contact with the bandaged wound, and he dropped his head onto the pillow, his sight going black when he felt the intense pain again.

“You…” Nigel tried to say something, anything, but his throat was so dry, he had to stop talking, swallowing nothing. “Water.”

“Oh, right,” the man said.

Nigel didn’t open his eyes when he heard the man getting up and going out of the room, and he didn’t open them when he heard him moving around the kitchen, opening drawers and finally, the faucet, the running water. He did open them when he felt the man’s returning presence beside his bed. His neighbor was looking at some point on his forehead, and he offered him the glass and a pill. Nigel tried to sit up, but he ended up grunting again and giving up, taking the pill and glass from the other’s hand and trying not to spill it as he swallowed it with a couple of sips, drinking enough to be able to articulate. When the other took the glass again, he left it on his bedside table, and stood there, as if he was waiting for something.

“What was…? Your name,” Nigel managed to say.

“Adam. I’m your neighbor, in 1A, we’ve talked-”

“Yeah, I- I remember. Why… What…” Nigel started asking, but he couldn’t focus on a single question. “You didn’t call the police,” he finally said.

“No.”

Nigel waited for an explanation, for his neighbor, Adam, to tell him _why_. Any person would’ve called the police or at least an ambulance at finding a person bleeding out in their hallway. But he was there, in his bed, so obviously the man hadn’t called either.

Nigel parted his lips to ask him why, but he suddenly didn’t have the strength to do it, so he just dropped his head onto the pillow.

“You should rest. When you are wounded you must have plenty of rest so your body recovers and heals,” Adam said in a monotonous voice.

Nigel closed his eyes, his eyelids weighing a ton. And just before drifting into unconsciousness again, he managed to say two words: “Thank you…”

****

Nigel woke and fell asleep what felt like a million times. He saw the light from the day spilling through his half drawn curtains and he groaned when it hit him right in the face. He also woke up to find his room in completely darkness, except for a dim light that came from the living room. Other times, he woke up to a hand in his shoulder, something to eat and a pill to take with a glass of water being held above him.

The part of his brain that wasn’t busy with the agonizing pain in his side tried to ask questions: what was that man still doing there, why was he taking care of him, how many days had passed, had anyone come to his house looking for him? But before he managed to ask any of them, his body betrayed him by lying down again and falling asleep as easily and quickly as when he was a kid, when there were no worries in his mind.

Finally, one of those times in which he woke up, he found enough strength to sit up with difficulty. Nigel groaned and his hand went straight to his side, holding the bandaged wound, fearing he would re-open the stitches. When he finally managed to get up he was huffing from the exertion, but at least he was up for the first time in- In how much…?

The first thing his mind noticed was that he was wearing the same pants he had been wearing on the night he had been stabbed, and they had bloodstains all over the front. The second was that he wasn’t wearing anything else except for the bandage. He looked around the room and found the beige shirt he had been wearing on the back of a chair, completely ruined but perfectly folded. Nigel frowned, and in that moment he heard a couple of faint voices, and all the muscles in his body tightened. He grabbed the doorframe and reached to the back of his pants to take his gun- But of course, it wasn’t there. After looking around and not finding it in the room, he just sighed and went out, staggering through the hallway. Finally, when he turned the corner and he could see the living room, he stood there watching the scene before him.

The neighbor with which he had talked probably twice about something more than a hello and goodbye was sitting in Nigel’s table, a laptop displayed in front of him playing some sort of movie, and a plate with pasta in between that and himself. And the voices he had heard were the movie and the man, saying the words at the same time.

“Adam?” he finally croaked, and the other stopped talking. Adam looked at him – although never in the eyes, as Nigel had noticed from all their previous encounters.

“Oh, Nigel. I- I didn’t know you were up. I was gonna bring you your dinner and pill later.”

Adam took another forkful of pasta and chewed it slowly, turning his attention back to the laptop. Nigel tilted his head, wondering what the hell was happening. Was he still asleep and was this a strange, surreal dream?

“Have you… been here all this time?”

The other man turned to him again, and he looked baffled at the question. “Uh… Yes. Well, I have slept in my apartment, but otherwise I’ve been here. You were wounded.”

“I _know_ I-” he started saying, but he abandoned the phrase midways. “How much time have I been…? You know. Out.”

“Two days.”

Nigel would’ve cursed if it wasn’t because his legs felt too weak to stand and talk at the same time anymore. So instead, he walked to him, baring his teeth when the movement pulled from the skin around the wound. He held to the back of the chair Adam wasn’t using as soon as he was close enough, and he sat carefully. He stayed still for a minute, catching his breath again and looking at the man, his fork halfway to his mouth.

“Adam. Why?” he finally asked.

“Why what?”

“Why… everything!” he asked, raising his right hand and doing a circular movement. Adam looked around, but he seemed even more confused when his eyes went to Nigel’s for a second, and then dropped to his chin.

“I’m- I’m sorry, you’re going to have to be more specific.”

Nigel stared at him for a few seconds. In any other situation, he would’ve assumed this person was teasing him, mocking him. That he was trying to anger him on purpose. But for some reason, maybe because if it wouldn’t have been for Adam, Nigel would probably be dead or being questioned by the police in a hospital bed, there was not even a bit of anger inside him in that moment. He leaned forwards carefully, wrinkling his nose again when the wound sent a new wave of pain.

“Why did you help me? Why didn’t you call the police?”

“You asked me to,” Adam simply said, his brow creasing.

Adam finally left the fork on the plate and stopped the movie he was watching, while eating in Nigel’s apartment, apparently watching out for him, his wounded neighbor whom he almost didn’t know. Nigel stared at him for a few seconds more, and then he chuckled. He stopped immediately, his hand going straight to the bandage and grunting as he leaned backwards with a puff.

“I did, you’re completely right…” he said, and he raised a hand to run it across his face, only to realize just how dirty they were, most of the dried blood still in his fingers, under his nails, in his palm...

“You need to take a shower,” Adam told him plainly.

“I do…” Nigel said, frowning a little. He wasn’t sure whether he should be offended by Adam’s blunt words, but after all, he was right.

“I wasn’t sure if you would be comfortable with me bathing you, so I just cleaned your wound. You didn’t seem very lucid the times you asked me to take you to the bathroom.”

Nigel cocked an eyebrow at the knowledge that the man had thought about bathing him, and also at the fact that Nigel apparently has asked him to take him to the bathroom, which he didn’t remember at all. But he decided to focus on one thing at a time; he _truly_ needed a shower. He also needed to eat, take more painkillers and go back to sleep, preferably in that order.

With a sort of plan formed in his head, he started getting up, but when he groaned and almost fell back on the chair, he felt a pair of hands grabbing his arm and holding him. Nigel leaned against the man unconsciously, and Adam circled his bare back to help him. They made the way to the bathroom that way, Nigel wishing he wouldn’t need his help, but grateful for whatever reason the man had to be helping him. When they reached the bathroom, Nigel grabbed the sink and gazed up at the mirror, but the man that returned his look wasn’t him; it was a dirty, gaunt person, stains of dried blood in his neck, chest and torso, dark circles under his eyes even if he had spent most of the time asleep, and too pale skin.

Nigel finally looked away and started unbuttoning his pants, only to pause when he noticed the pair eyes fixed on him.

“Are you going to stay there and watch…?” Nigel asked, raising an eyebrow.

Adam smiled, his upper lip trembling a little. “I can stay if you need help.”

Nigel snorted half a laugh, but he shook his head.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, and Adam nodded and turned to go, but he raised a hand and Adam paused. “Just… can you stay out there? In case… I don’t know. In case I fall.”

Nigel was the one to avert his eyes then, embarrassed by his own words. But Adam just nodded again, and he went out to leave him alone to bathe. Nigel sighed, once again wondering where that man had come from.


	2. Chapter 2

Nigel arrived at his new home one afternoon and came across his strange neighbor again. He was sitting in the stairs of the building, both hands linked holding his legs up, and his eyes observing the people walking by the street. Nigel was about to walk by the man and go into the building, but for some reason, he stopped beside him and cleared his throat when the other didn’t seem to even notice him.

“Hey,” he said, and he wrinkled his nose at his own lack of words.

“Hi,” the neighbor said, not looking up.

Nigel opened his mouth again, but then he realized that he didn’t remember the man’s name. What did it say on his doorplate…? What name had the man told him when they had met in the washing room? He knew it was something that started with A… Nigel shook his head and pocketed his hands in his pants.

“So… what are you doing out here by yourself, neighbor?”

“I’m people watching.”

“People watching…?” Nigel asked, raising his gaze and looking at the passersby. There wasn’t anything especially interesting about them. “Watching who?”

“Just people.”

“Oh…” he said, arching his eyebrows at his neighbor’s words.

“Want to join me?”

Nigel cocked his head, confused but also amused at the man’s behavior. He sounded so honest in his invitation, that Nigel almost felt tempted to accept it… But he actually had come back home to sleep a couple of hours before going back to the club. So he sighed, looking at the disheveled curls from above.

“Maybe some other time.”

“Okay,” the other said, turning for a second to look at his knee – the part of Nigel that he had at eye level -, and focusing back on the people going by the sidewalk.

Nigel smiled, shook his head, and went inside.

The next day, he went out of his apartment to go to work, and after locking his door, he turned and almost collided into someone else.

“What the fuck?”

Nigel backed against the door, and the slightly smaller man stepped backwards, looking up with a surprised expression.

“Oh. Sorry, I-”

Nigel collected himself and straightened while his neighbor fidgeted in front of him, flexing his fingers on both sides of his body.

“What?” Nigel finally asked.

“I’ve come to ask you if you wanted to come to watch people with me.”

“What?” he asked again, the fright Adam had given him making him talk a little more brusquely than he had intended.

“You- you said ‘some other time’. Yesterday, I asked you and you said-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know what I fucking said,” Nigel nodded, but he frowned. He hadn’t expected the man to _actually_ show up to invite him to sit in the building’s stairs to watch people go by. But in that moment he sighed, regretting having talked to him like that. “I- Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’m already running late for work.”

“Oh. All right… It’s okay.”

Nigel pursed his lips, his chest tightening a little at the sad look the man had in that moment. But even if he very much preferred to spend his afternoon trying to get to know the strange man that lived across from him than hearing a bunch of dickheads complain about drugs and women, he was co-managing a club now, so he had to go.

Nigel remembered that in one of the many moments that he lay in his bed, the pain too strong for him to get up until Adam returned with more food and new painkillers that dulled both the pain and his mind. He wondered many times why that man was being so good with him, when Nigel had only talked a few times with him, and he had been a fucking asshole in one of them.

On one of the days in which he felt better and he managed to get out of bed without feeling instantly light-headed, he called his business partner. He was another Romanian that had arrived to New York a year before Nigel, and with even less than him. But after a few months of knowing each other, the plan to start their own club had gone from a crazy idea formed in a drunken night, to a reality.

“Nigel? Fucking finally, man, what the hell?!”

“Darius,” he just said, his voice rough at having been unused all day.

“Holy shit, man, I was so fucking worried,” he said in Romanian while Nigel lit up a cigarette. He had barely smoked in days, and when he gave the first drag, the relief was almost instant. Nigel closed his eyes and leaned backwards on the couch while he exhaled the smoke, his hand pressing automatically his bandaged side over the shirt he had put on. “Dude, you haven’t called _once_ since the other night, and I went by your house but nobody answered. I thought you were fucking dead!”

“Well, I’m not. Takes more than an asshole like that trying to steal from us to take me out… But he certainly tried,” Nigel said, bitterly huffing out a laugh that made him hiss from pain.

The night in which he had been stabbed, he had called Darius to let him know that the deal had gone wrong, but he was alive. But in the pain-induced mist that his mind had been that night, Nigel had only been able to tell him that.

“Luca told me what happened… We’re looking for the fucking bastard, Nigel. We’re gonna make him pay, of course,” he said, and then he made a pause. Nigel swallowed, because the reason why he had avoided that call wasn’t him, or Darius.

“What about Tom?”

The sigh at the other side of the line gave him the answer he needed. But it wasn’t like he didn’t know. When everything had gone so wrong in the deal, he had seen Tom, one of the two men that had gone with him to the meeting, falling to the ground after Nigel had managed to sneak away with only a knife jammed in his side. It wasn’t like he could’ve done anything for him; they were clearly outnumbered, and Nigel already knew he was dead before he had had time to react, but he still felt like a fucking coward for leaving, for having escaped while the man hadn’t. But at least the other man, Luca, had also managed to escape too.

“We found his body and took him to his family. I’ve… I’ve taken care of the funeral’s expenses with the club’s money. I hope you don’t mind…”

Nigel pinched the bridge of his nose and smacked his tongue.

“Fuck. No, of course I don’t mind… Thanks for taking care.”

“No problem, man,” Darius said, and then they both made a pause in which Nigel tried to keep quiet as he fought the lump in his throat with another drag from the cigarette. “So. How are you? Apart from alive…?”

Nigel chuckled and nodded, even if Darius couldn’t see him.

“I’ve been fucking better. But I’ve been fucking worse, too, so I guess I can’t really complain.”

“Do you need help? I can ask Iuliana to bring you something to eat.”

“Don’t tell me she cooks now!”

Darius laughed louder than before. “Of course not, man, she doesn’t cook a single thing. But she knows how to pick the best takeaway places.”

“Sounds delicious. But no, thanks. I actually… I already have help,” he said, looking towards the door as if he was telling a secret and someone was about to go through the door and catch him.

“No way? I thought you didn’t know anyone in this goddamn city apart from us!” Darius joked.

“Ha, ha. Well, I do know people, so fuck off.”

“Okay, okay… Well, I hope they take good care of you. Call me if you need anything, and don’t worry about the club, I’ll keep it safe while you’re out.”

“I’m almost afraid of the moment I return…”

Darius laughed again, but in that moment Nigel’s attention turned to the door, which opened after someone unlocked it. Nigel observed with a frown how Adam walked in with a bag that looked like groceries in a hand, and a messenger bag banging against his side. He turned on the living room’s light and closed the door before turning around and freezing at noticing Nigel sitting there in the semi-darkness.

“Darius, I gotta go,” he said, not knowing what was the last thing his friend had told him. “I’ll call you.”

He hanged up and left his phone on the coffee table as he tapped off the ash of his cigarette.

“You’re up,” Adam said.

“I am. How did you get in?” Nigel asked. He wasn’t annoyed, but curious.

“I have your keys. I’ve had them since I- Well. Since I helped you.”

Nigel nodded. He hadn’t even thought about how the man had been going and coming to his house for a week now, but it obviously made sense that he had kept his keys.

“What’s that?” he asked, nodding towards the grocery bag he had in his hand. Adam immediately smiled.

“Oh. Our dinner. I was going to prepare it and bring it to you.”

Nigel gave a last drag to the cigarette and crushed it in the ashtray before getting up with a grimace, but realizing that standing up was much less difficult than it had been a few days back.

Adam started moving around the kitchen, and Nigel observed from the doorframe, fascinated. It was obvious that Adam had been cooking there all those days, because he didn’t hesitate when he searched through the drawers, taking the frying pans and pots, plates and cutlery.

“Chicken and broccoli?” Nigel asked, craning his neck to see the packages in the counter. “Isn’t that what you made yesterday?”

“Yes,” Adam answered, turning the stove on and putting the pan there.

“Actually, isn’t that what you’ve brought me almost every night…?” Nigel asked, realizing just now.

“It is.”

Nigel waited to see if the man caught his tone and explained why, exactly, but he eventually gave up.

“Adam. Why don’t we make something else? Or… I don’t know, order something. I’ll pay.”

Adam turned around and his eyes went straight to Nigel’s shoulder, wrinkling his nose.

“But I can’t have anything else…”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because this is what I have for dinner, and I had already planned on eating this.”

And with that, he continued preparing everything, opening the chicken’s package and separating the slices.

“You have that… _every_ night?”

“Yes,” Adam repeated once again, although that time in a much lower tone of voice.

“Adam, that’s… that’s insane.”

The fork Adam had in his hand clattered in the counter when he abruptly dropped it, and the muscles in Adam’s back tensed.

“I am _not_ insane.”

“I know you’re not- Well, at least, I _hope_ you’re not, I don’t know you that well,” Nigel tried to joke, but he cleared his throat when the other didn’t answer, even if he looked less tense. “But there’s so many different things you could have, and you just like having the same every goddamn night?”

“Yes,” Adam answered, and he bowed his head slightly, enough so that Nigel could see the right side of his face.

Nigel raised an eyebrow, but he chuckled after a brief pause. “Well… okay.”

Adam turned once again, and that time his eyes travelled to Nigel’s own for a second, before averting them. Now that Nigel noticed, even with the shitty kitchen fluorescent lights, Adam had the bluest eyes he had ever seen.

“Okay…?” Adam asked.

“Yeah, okay. I guess we all have our quirks.”

In that moment, the wound reminded Nigel that he had been standing up for too long, and he hissed as he grabbed the doorframe. He left Adam in the kitchen, who was still looking at him bewildered, and he sat at the table in the living room while he waited.

When Adam came back with the two plates of chicken and broccoli, the man opened his laptop and put it on the table. But that time, instead of putting in in the center of the table, he put it on a side so Nigel could see it too.

****

The first few days, Adam had struggled with that complete change in his routine. Still, he had managed to maintain his schedules. He found that the only thing he had to do was make a few changes: he started cooking in his apartment and eating in Nigel’s, but ended up doing both in his neighbor’s. Adam also went to work on Monday, but he spent all day worried about Nigel. So at the end of the day, he asked his boss for all the holidays he hadn’t taken that year yet, and she told him that ‘ _please, do take some holidays, Adam. You work too much_ ’. And so he did. He gave himself a slightly altered schedule, like he did when he was on vacations, cooking for both Nigel and himself and bringing it to the man along with pills to help him battle the pain. He also helped him get up and go to the bathroom when he needed it, even if the man seemed more asleep than awake in those times, but definitely much more lucid than the first days. Apart from a couple of times in which Adam almost skipped his bath time, he found that it was rather easy taking care of Nigel.

In the moments in which Nigel had already taken his lunch or dinner and he had fallen back asleep, Adam found himself sitting in the chair in Nigel’s bedroom, looking at that strange, wounded man. He remembered the time he had gathered up all his courage to go invite him to people watch with him, since the man had seemed interested in it the day before. He had rejected Adam, and so he hadn’t insisted anymore, hearing in his head his father’s voice, telling him that if someone didn’t want to talk or be with him he should just leave them alone, since not everyone was interested in the same things Adam was. He was disappointed, since he had been excited at having a new neighbor with whom he could maybe have some sort of relationship.

After his breakup with Beth, Adam had moved into a new building, decided to ‘ _try new things’_ , as Harlan had told him. Nigel was the first neighbor he had since he had moved in there, so he had thought that maybe Nigel would be interested in spending some time with him. Maybe he could have someone to talk about space, or maybe even Adam could take an interest in something the man liked. He was, after all, trying _new things_.

So when Nigel had rejected him, he had been sad about it, but he had managed to forget about it. Until, of course, that very same man had appeared wounded in their hallway.

Now, Adam felt Nigel’s eyes on him as they ate dinner, and his voice interrupted the space program playing in the laptop.

“So… you don’t work?” Nigel asked, and Adam nodded without looking away from the screen.

“I do. I work in the planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History. I actually wanted to go to California, but… In the end I decided to stay here.”

“Oh, the planetarium? How is that?”

Adam left his fork and paused the video then, looking at Nigel’s face. He looked for signs that told him the man was mocking him. With some people it was harder, because they mocked him and managed to keep their faces completely blank, in which Adam couldn’t see any change at all. But other people didn’t mind mocking Adam straight in his face, thinking he wouldn’t notice at all, and _those_ he had learned to identify. But Nigel was just chewing on a piece of broccoli, looking at his eyes even though Adam’s were roaming though his face. And so, he smiled.

“It’s amazing,” he answered. “I get to give lectures to a lot of people without having to see or talk to them, since it’s dark and I only answer questions whenever I feel like it, but I don’t have to every day. Once a month, we hold a special event to watch the real sky during in the nighttime. Those are my favorite days, and a lot of people come for those. And- and once in a while we do an even more special event and-”

Adam stopped abruptly, looked down and took a piece of chicken to his mouth, which he chewed slowly.

“And?” Nigel asked after a pause, waving his fork in the air.

“Sorry, I just. I love space, and sometimes I talk too much when I get excited about something.”

Nigel huffed, so Adam gazed up. That could mean he was annoyed, but the man looked anything but. He was actually smiling.

“Nothing wrong with getting excited about things you like, darling. So? What do you guys do once in a while?”

Adam smiled and he looked at Nigel in the eyes for a second before looking down. And then, he told him. Nigel ate calmly while he listened to him, and he even asked Adam some questions about the planetarium and his job. Only when a couple of hours later, Adam saw Nigel shifting uncomfortably in his chair and groaning softly, did he stop talking and helped the man go back to his bed. He returned to the kitchen and washed the dishes, and when he went to Nigel’s bedroom, the man was peacefully asleep. Adam sat in the chair and observed Nigel’s arm draped across his stomach, rising and falling slowly with the rhythm of his breathing.

Adam yawned, and looking at his watch, he realized that it was a little past his bedtime. He tried to remember the last time he had skipped his bedtime, but he couldn’t. And still, he didn’t feel nervous about it, as he did when he changed his schedule accidentally.

Adam got up and looked one last time at Nigel, heard his soft snoring, and went out of his neighbor’s apartment with his lips turned upwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to say in the first chapter (although I edited the notes) that this fic is based on the '[Spacedogs Thread](http://starkaryen.tumblr.com/tagged/spacedogs-thread/)' I did on twitter -and then moved to tumblr- a few months back :)
> 
> Thanks a lot for reading, your kudos, comments, etc<33333


	3. Chapter 3

When two weeks had passed, Nigel found himself being able to stay out of his bed during longer periods of time, and even started taking short walks across his hallway, swearing whenever the wound would hurt too much and he had to give up and throw himself onto the couch, lighting up a cigarette.

Almost every day, Nigel woke up and found Adam already in his apartment, preparing breakfast and as active and awake as Nigel felt tired and sore. In a sort of unspoken agreement, neither of them had talked yet about the fact that Adam was pretty much taking care of him. And so, they spent all that time together either in silence with Adam’s space shows playing in his laptop, or with Nigel asking questions, mostly about that very same subject. Nigel had never been very interested in space, apart from looking at the sky and being mesmerized at how beautiful it was, but he certainly was learning a lot of things. And not only about space.

He started observing Adam, the way his eyes almost never met Nigel’s, but drifted mostly around Nigel’s face, neck and shoulders. The way Adam clenched and unclenched his hands when he had to pause and think about something. And the way he frowned slightly when Nigel made a joke. He was entirely fascinated by Adam’s behavior, and found himself wanting to know more and more about the man, and so he started asking him about himself, too. Adam told him he used to live with his father before he died, that he had had a failed relationship after that, which had been the reason why he had decided to move out, start anew. Adam had been offered a job in California but had ended up choosing to stay in the Natural History Museum’s planetarium.

Nigel fisted his hands when Adam told him about the asshole that had fired him from his previous job, the incident with the police, or how sad he had been after Beth, even if Adam just shrugged and told him he was okay now. Nigel felt the burning rage inside him, the need to search for each and every one of the people who had somehow made Adam feel anything close to that and make them pay… But he just swallowed, relaxed his muscles and sighed before asking Adam another question, listening to the man’s soft voice and calming down.

Adam also asked him about his life, and so Nigel told him leaving out the gory details. He told him he had lived in Romania, where he had had a semi successful business, but he left out the details of _that_ business. He also told Adam that, just as him, the reason why he had decided to move out to America had been a failed relationship. But once again, he left out how much of an asshole he had been, how only in the very end, he had realized how much he was hurting the person he was supposed to love. And when Adam asked him about what he did now, Nigel tensed, fearing he would ask then about the night he had found him half dead. But when he told Adam that he managed another business with a friend, a club for people to go dancing and drinking, he just nodded and shrugged, and that was it.

One morning Nigel woke up and, after going to the bathroom, he came out putting on a white, ragged white t-shirt, careful to not hurt himself with the movements. But when he went into the living room, he froze. Adam wasn’t there, nor in the kitchen where he usually found him. Nigel frowned, since the man had been there every single morning. He guessed Adam would be busy, or that he might’ve overslept, so he just fixed himself a couple of pieces of toast instead of the cereal bowl Adam used to prepare every morning. After that, he started what had become his morning routine: taking a short walk inside the apartment, taking a shower, and then sitting to read or watch something on the TV, even if it was strange doing it without Adam’s typing sound in the background, or without the man also reading in the other part of the couch.

By the time Nigel left the book and realized it was lunchtime and Adam hadn’t appeared yet, the concern that had started as a mild bother that morning made him get up and go out of his apartment. He knocked on Adam’s door and waited, pricking up his ear to try to listen to any movement inside. He heard steps on the stairs and turned around in time to nod a greeting at a neighbor, who kept going upstairs after returning the gesture. Nigel knocked again when the woman was out of his sight, louder this time. But again, no answer.

Nigel returned to his apartment and prepared something to eat while he tried to tell himself that Adam would probably be out. But as he ate his lunch, alone for the first time since Adam had started taking care of him, he could feel the concern taking over him completely. After lunch, he started pacing and hissing every time his wound hurt too much, but by that time, he couldn’t stop his mind imagining all sorts of scenarios. What if the assholes that had crossed him in the drug deal had come to finish the job, but had found Adam instead? Even if that was a ridiculous thought, since those guys only wanted the drugs without having to pay a single dollar, and besides, how on earth would they know where Nigel lived? Nigel shook his head at how absurd everything was. Was he seriously worried about a man that he had only begun to really know a couple of weeks before…?

In that moment, he heard the unmistakably sound of a door being unlocked and opened in the hallway, and so Nigel propelled himself towards his own door and swung it open, unconcerned about being barefoot. Adam turned around from his doorframe at the sudden noise Nigel had made, and they stood still for a couple of seconds, looking at each other.

“Adam, what the fuck!” Nigel finally said, stepping out of his door, his hand going to the place above his wound, since it was bothering him.

“What?” Adam asked, frowning but opening the door to his apartment.

“Where the hell where you?”

“I was at work. I had to go back, although I’m working part-time for now,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, and Nigel let out a long sigh he hadn’t realized he had been holding. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to prepare breakfast or lunch with you.”

Adam went inside his apartment, leaving the door open for him. Nigel gestured with both palms upwards in disbelief , but then he followed the man inside and closed the door behind him.

“No, that- Adam, that’s fine, I just. I was fucking worried.”

The man had been taking out his coat, and he paused with it in his hands, his eyes skimming over Nigel’s shoulders while he frowned slightly.

“Why were you worried?”

“Because I thought something had happened to you!”

“But I was at work, Nigel!” he repeated, as if Nigel hadn’t understood the first time.

“Adam, I didn’t _know_ that! You didn’t tell me you were going back to work.”

Adam hung the coat slowly and then he parted his lips, arching his eyebrows. “Oh. Yes, I guess you didn’t know…”

Nigel chuckled as he nodded, the tension he had felt fading now that he knew Adam was okay.

“You could’ve left a note, sent a postcard…” Nigel joked.

Adam wrinkled his nose, and shook his head.

“Why would I send a postcard? I was just at work.”

“It was… I was joking, Adam,” Nigel said, pursing his lips.

“Oh. Right…” he said, smiling a little for a second before turning around walking away from the entry.

Nigel looked around him for the first time, and he took in the apartment. Even if it was the same size as his, it looked _much_ nicer. The furniture matched perfectly, it had curtains, the couch looked like one you would see in a store, and everything was pristine.

“Do you want a cup of tea?” Adam’s voice coming from the kitchen interrupted his inspection.

Nigel went to the adjacent room, where Adam was taking things from the cupboards and placing them on the counter. He saw for a moment the packages of cereals filling an entire shelf of the cupboard, the mugs perfectly aligned and all of them the same color.

“Uh… yeah, sure,” he finally said, tearing off his gaze from the furniture and focusing on Adam.

He prepared a kettle and served two cups, and Nigel refused when Adam offered milk or sugar. They sat on Adam’s table, and despite it being bigger than the one in his apartment, they still sat right next to each other, sipping from the hot beverage in silence.

“I have a thing,” Adam blurted, and it almost made Nigel spill the hot drink onto his lap.

He swallowed the tea, which burnt his throat, and set the cup back on the table as he turned to look at the man. Adam stood up from his chair and started fidgeting, flexing and stretching his fingers before rubbing his palm against his jeans.

“A thing?” Nigel asked, confused about where that conversation was going.

“Yes. It’s called Asperger’s Syndrome.”

Nigel searched for the term in his mind, and he only had a slight idea of what it was. He sat sideways in the chair to be able to look at Adam, and he cleared his throat.

“That’s, uhm… some sort of disorder, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s a high-functioning autism. Although I don’t really like that term,” he said, and he stopped moving altogether, standing still in front of Nigel. “My brain works differently than NTs.”

“N what now?”

“NTs. Neurotypicals,” he said, and Nigel made an O with his lips, but Adam kept talking. “One thing about it is not knowing what people are thinking… Like right now.”

“I… uhm… I’m actually thinking I wish I knew more about it,” Nigel shrugged, not really sure of what to say.

“Oh, okay. Well, another thing is not being able to understand people well, especially when they say something but mean another thing entirely. Like… like jokes.”

“Ah…” Nigel said, leaning his right and good side against the back of the chair.

 _Now_ it obviously made sense, the way Adam had looked at him with a blank expression every time he had made a joke.

“So you _never_ say anything different from what you actually mean?” Nigel asked, trying to think of _everything_ that actually included.

“No, most aspies are very honest.”

“Okay… no metaphors for you, then.”

Nigel pursed his lips, and he was about to clarify that _that_ was also a joke, but then Adam smiled.

“I got that joke,” he said in a low voice, and Nigel grinned.

Adam returned to his chair, so Nigel sat upright to give him more space.

“Another thing about Asperger’s is that I can't tell what people are thinking or feeling even when they think I should be able to. That’s why… why I didn’t realize I should’ve told you about me going back to work.”

Nigel smiled warmly then, and he took his cup of tea to have something to do with in his hands, when in truth he just wanted to touch Adam and comfort him, but not wanting to force his contact.

“It’s okay, Adam. I was just worried something had happened to you.”

Adam smiled too, and he nodded. His eyes danced across Nigel’s torso, and they finally dared to climb up to his neck.

“So… you are not annoyed or mad at me?”

“For not telling me that you were going back to work?” Nigel asked, tilting his head.

“No, for… Not telling you about the Asperger’s.”

Nigel turned his body to him at that, and he frowned again. “Why would I be mad about that?”

“I don’t know, some people are when I tell them,” Adam said, and he shrugged before sipping from his tea.

“What the fuck is wrong with people…?” Nigel asked, but he shook his head. “No, of course I’m not mad! Besides, you didn’t _have_ to tell me, it’s not like you owe me anything. But… I’m glad you did. So thanks.”

Nigel swung his leg so his knee would hit Adam’s in a gentle bump. Adam’s eyes rose to Nigel’s for a second, and his lips stretched in a broad grin that made Nigel’s breath hitch in his throat. He averted his eyes and cleared his throat before taking a gulp from his tea to finish it.

“Well, thanks for this, too, but I’m going to go back to my apartment. I think I need to lie down for a bit…”

“Okay.”

They stood up at the same time, and Adam took his cup before Nigel could do it, so he just nodded to the man and went to the door, but Adam’s voice made him pause and turn once again.

“Can I… I could go make dinner with you, if you want. As we did these days.”

“Of course! Come over for dinner. Or, you know… Whenever you want. You still have a copy of my keys, after all,” Nigel said, shrugging to try to downplay it.

“Oh, do you want them back?” Adam asked, approaching the messenger bag he had left in the couch when he had arrived.

“No, no, it’s fine. Keep them. That way I won’t have to get up every time you come in. You know. It’s… better for the wound.”

Adam frowned a little, but he nodded and smiled for a moment. Nigel felt the need to tell him that the truth behind his words was that he wouldn’t really care about having to get up every time Adam knocked at his door, if that meant Adam _was_ going to his apartment. He had been worried all day about him, but not only that; Nigel had also felt lonely. And now that he had spent weeks in Adam’s company, he didn’t want to spend every single night alone with only his healing wound as company.

He finally left Adam’s apartment after nodding, and once he was out, he sighed again and bit the inside of his mouth. Then, he shook his head at his own behavior and returned to his apartment.

****

Adam took a bite from his sandwich and followed with his eyes a woman pushing a stroller with a baby in it. She was wearing a very colorful dress, and so when she was finally out of his sight and he turned, he realized that Harlan had been talking to him, because he was looking at him like people did when they were waiting for an answer.

“What?”

“I asked, how is it going at work? You haven’t called me in two weeks…”

“Oh… yeah, I wasn’t working,” he simply said, taking a sip from his bottle of water.

“You weren’t? Don’t tell me you were fired, Adam…”

“Oh, no! I just took some vacation.”

“Vacation? What the hell for?”

Adam considered Harlan’s question while he chewed on another bite of his sandwich. He usually avoided lying at all costs, but at the same time, he wasn’t stupid. He knew that whatever had happened to Nigel, it wasn’t something he should be telling to anyone without his permission.

“I was helping my neighbor,” he said. Absolutely no lies in there.

“Your neighbor? The man you told me a couple of months ago that didn’t want to spend time with you?”

“Yes- Well. I only asked him once, since you and dad used to say I shouldn’t insist. But… now I think he actually wants to spend time with me.”

“Adam, listen to me,” Harlan said, his voice changing and his body shifting so he were facing him. “Did he _demand_ that you request vacation at work and help him with… whatever you’re helping him with?”

“Oh, no! He didn’t know about me taking vacation. I did that because I wanted to.”

Adam heard Harlan sigh, move back to his original position, and then Adam saw him nodding out of the corner of his eye. “All right… So. What’s this neighbor of yours like?”

“He’s… I don’t know. He’s nice. He’s from Europe… And very handsome,” he said, his lips turning upwards.

“Is he now? Wait, Adam, do you have a crush on your neighbor?”

Adam couldn’t help the smile widening on his lips. He bowed his head to try to hide it from Harlan without success, since he gave him a little smack in Adam’s leg.

“You little devil! I can’t believe it, what’s with you and your neighbors?” he asked, but he laughed, and that way Adam knew he didn’t mean to actually call him _devil_.

“I don’t know… But it’s okay, I don’t think he has a crush on me.”

“How are you so sure? Have you asked him?”

“No!” Adam exclaimed, chuckling at the ridiculous idea. “I don’t want… I don’t want to make things awkward, like I did with Beth.”

“Kid… You could make things awkward, that’s true, but… You also could _not_ make things awkward. If you know what I mean.”

Adam frowned, and he left the last bite of his sandwich on top of the wrapper.

“Not really.”

“What I mean is, you tried it with Beth and it didn’t work out, but… If you don’t try, you’ll never know.”

Adam nodded after a pause because that, he thought, was true. But he thought about the possibility of Nigel rejecting him, about once again not having anyone to talk to when he returned to his house every day after work, and he wrinkled his nose. He liked being with Nigel and cooking with someone else again, he liked the man’s soothing presence, and he had even gotten used to the man’s smoking smell, even if he still didn’t like cigarettes.

So now, Adam thought about changing once again his routine, about eating alone every day in his apartment, and only seeing Nigel before going to work, and he felt his heart tightening. No, Adam definitely didn’t want that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a Spacedogs playlist on spotify ([link here](https://open.spotify.com/user/kate_angel/playlist/2zIuyww0KilasUv62aso2Z) ^^), but I'm considering uploading it to 8tracks (even if people outside of US can't use it well now :( ). Would anyone be interested in that? :)
> 
> Thanks to everyone who is reading this daily and for your encouragement!!!<333


	4. Chapter 4

As Adam made his way back home, he realized he was fairly happy. It had been a great day in the planetarium, the groups of people that had come to the talk had been polite and Adam had liked answering their questions. After work, he had stopped to do his grocery shopping, as he did every Friday. It had been exactly three weeks since the Friday in which Adam had found Nigel wounded in the landing of their building, and the man was doing much better. So he had decided to go buy his favorite brand of mac & cheese to celebrate. And now, with the packages in the paper bag, he arrived to the building and went straight to Nigel’s apartment. But only when he came in and turned around, did he notice that Nigel wasn’t alone: there was another person in the living room.

They were seated around the small table in which he and Nigel ate all their meals, the strange man sitting in the chair Adam usually used, Nigel in his own chair. And Adam also noticed that the other man had turned, reaching for something in the back of his pants, although Nigel had a hand wrapped around his forearm, his grip stopping the other’s movement.

Nigel said something in Romanian – Adam had heard him curse or talk in the phone a few times in that language -, and the stranger sighed and returned his hand to his lap.

“Jesus, kid, you almost scared me to death…”

“Uhm. It would actually be quite difficult to scare someone to death, and I simply came in the room.”

“Adam,” Nigel said, turning to look at him for the first time, “this is Darius, he’s the friend I told you about.”

“Your business partner,” Adam remembered, even if he didn’t know exactly what _business_ did they manage.

The man turned to Nigel and huffed out a laugh as he hit his leg with a hand.

“And _who_ is this, Nigel? Aren’t you going to introduce us?” the man called Darius asked him.

Nigel rolled his eyes and sighed, but nodded. “Darius, this is Adam, my neighbor. Adam, this is… Darius.”

Darius stood up and lifted a hand, offering Adam his palm, so he took it while he tried to look a little above the man’s shoulders. He had the same thick accent as Nigel, although a voice not as pleasing as the other’s. The tone in his skin was also more tanned than Adam’s, his brown eyes darker than Nigel’s, and he had a nice smile, so Adam imitated the man’s expression.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” Adam said as the man finally released his hand.

“I- I know, I meant-”

“Didn’t you have to go, Darius…?” Nigel’s voice interrupted him as he stood up with a cigarette between his forefinger and middle finger, and the other man chuckled again.

“Of course. I’ll see you around, k- Adam. See you, Nigel!”

Adam moved aside while the man raised a hand in good-bye, and then went out. Nigel approached him when the door closed, his steps steady but slow.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Nigel told him with his head tilted and a soft smile curling his lips upwards. “What’s that?”

Adam smiled too, this time sincerely, and he looked down at the bag he was holding, which was what Nigel was asking for.

“Oh! It’s my favorite brand of mac & cheese. I wanted to have them today. Are you hungry?”

“Hmm… yeah, I guess.”

Adam’s smile widened and he nodded before going towards the kitchen, excited about cooking dinner. Adam started taking out the pot, spoon and everything he would need as soon as he stepped in.

“I think we need to talk about that,” Nigel said from behind.

“About what?”

Adam turned to take the milk, but almost collided into Nigel, who was already holding it out for him. Adam stepped back with his eyes fluttering across Nigel’s face, not expecting the man so close, and took the milk.

“About the fact that you’ve been basically taking care of me, and feeding me for almost a month, and I should… I don’t know. Repay you in some way.”

Adam put the pot with water in the stove, and he wrinkled his nose.

“You mean, pay me money…?”

“Well… I don’t know. Maybe? Or I could buy everything we eat from now on, and that way I would be repaying you.”

“But you don’t know the brands I like, and you wouldn’t go to the store where I go. And I don’t want your money,” Adam said, shifting a little to stare at Nigel’s hand, in which he was holding his cigarette, away from him so the smoke wouldn’t hit him. “I… I like eating with you.”

Adam turned again, not entirely sure he wanted to look at Nigel’s reaction to his words. But Nigel stayed still and quiet, so Adam finally gazed at him, daring to look up and seeing Nigel’s eyes fixed on his face, his lips a little parted. Adam wondered what exactly would the man be thinking. Did Nigel think he was a lonely, ridiculous man…?

Nigel finally reacted, wetting his lips before taking a drag from his cigarette and exhaling the smoke away.

“I like eating with you too, Adam,” he said in a low voice, and Adam sighed with relief. Nigel grinned, crooked teeth flashing between pink lips. “But it’s still unfair, so… I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”

Adam nodded, unsure of what Nigel meant with making it up to him, and he focused on the food. Nigel helped him cook the mac & cheese, even if Adam had to take everything they needed from the top drawers, since the wound still bothered Nigel whenever he lifted his arms above his shoulders, even if he tried to hide it.

When dinner was finished, they sat in their seats, and Adam waited as Nigel took the first bite of the dish. He hummed as he chewed the pasta.

“This is amazing, Adam,” Nigel said, taking another forkful, and Adam smiled, pleased to share his favorite meal with him. “I’m sorry if my friend scared you before,” Nigel said after a pause in which they just ate in silence.

“He didn’t scare me,” Adam said, shaking his head and taking his glass of water.

“Oh. Well… good, then.”

“He seems nice. Although I didn’t like that he thinks I’m a kid. I’m almost thirty-four,” Adam complained.

Nigel chuckled, but he shook his head. “He didn’t mean it literally, Adam. It’s… you know.”

“I don’t.”

“Just a way of calling you. He doesn’t mean that you’re a kid.”

“Oh… Okay.”  


Adam saw Nigel smiling, but it wasn’t the pitiful smile someone would give him in a situation in which he hadn’t understood something so simple, so obvious, and they had had to explain it to him. It was a nice smile that made Adam’s stomach stir a little, a warm feeling coiling inside him. And he really liked that feeling.

****

After washing the dishes together, Nigel couldn’t stand any longer, so he sat on the couch and turned the TV on while Adam took a book out of his bag and immersed himself in it. Despite being tired and in pain, he didn’t want to go to bed yet, desiring a few more minutes of Adam’s company. But as well as Nigel could endure the pain, an aching pang made him hiss as he pressed his hand against the now closed cut under the shirt. He wasn’t wearing bandages anymore, but the wound still hurt him, and he still felt weaker than he was used to feel, which frustrated him to no end.

Even if Adam missed most of Nigel’s gestures and cues, he looked at him lowering his book and pursed his lips.

“I should go and let you rest.”

“No, it’s-” Nigel started saying, but he bared his teeth when another pang forced him to straighten his back.

“You still need to rest, Nigel.”

“I know, you’re right, darling…” he gave up, sighing.

They stood up at the same time, and when Adam started putting his book back into this bag, something occurred to Nigel.

“Adam, why… Why don’t you read me a bit of your book?”

The man turned, frozen, and he frowned.

“But you need to rest,” he repeated.

“I know, and I will. I’ll lie down on my bed and you can read from your chair.”

Nigel had lost count of the times he had woken up during the worst part of the past weeks to find Adam sitting in that chair in front of his bed. Sometimes he would be with his legs hoisted up, arms linked around his calves and chin pressed to one of his knees. Other times, he would be drinking tea, or a glass of milk, and other times he would be with his gaze fixed on a book, or on the laptop balanced on his legs. But every single time, Nigel found himself calming down when he saw those big, blue eyes present in the room, whether it was in the bright morning light, or the dim darkness of the evening. And every single time a nightmare was the cause of his awakening, he would drift off to sleep again with an appeased mind and relaxed muscles.

Adam looked at him now as he considered his request, and then he nodded once. They turned the lights from the living room off as they made their way to the hallway, and Nigel went to the bathroom first. When he went out and into his bedroom, though, he found Adam in the chair, but not in the spot he usually was; he had moved the chair to the side of his bed, and he had the book already prepared in his lap.

“Are you sure you’re interested in this? It’s a rather detailed book about white dwarfs.”

“I’m fine with whatever the book is about, Adam,” Nigel said sincerely. He very much didn’t care about the subject, as long as Adam’s voice was the one to read it aloud.

Nigel lay down on the bed with a grunt before Adam’s fixed gaze. When he was comfortable with the position of the pillows under his head, he looked at Adam and swallowed.

“There’s… plenty of space in the bed. You can sit here if you want,” he said, but he realized immediately how that sounded, and he looked at Adam’s face, searching for a horrified expression at his suggestion that he didn’t find. “I just. I mean, that chair can’t be too comfortable and-”

“Okay.”

Nigel stared at Adam as the man got up from the chair and sat carefully beside him, the mattress dipping under the added weight.

Nigel was telling the truth, the bed _was_ spacious enough for him to be lying down and for Adam to be sitting with his back against the wall. But still, he wondered as he looked at the man if he truly hadn’t realized how Nigel’s proposition could be interpreted, or if he just didn’t mind. Nigel decided to stop that line of thought when Adam opened his book and looked at him, as if asking if he was sure.

“Go ahead, darling. I’ll just… rest my eyes for a bit.”

Adam started reading, and Nigel’s eyes closed. He was so tired, he felt like he was floating, his mind detached from his body, as if he couldn’t move a single muscle now that he had finally lay down. But Adam’s voice kept him anchored even if most of the words were unknown to him. Adam could’ve been talking in another language entirely, and Nigel still would’ve fallen asleep as if there was nothing in the world that could worry or hurt him.

When Nigel opened his eyes, he groaned at the morning light that was spilling from the open curtains. He sighed and rolled over to bury his face on the pillow- or, at least, he tried to, because he touched something that wasn’t his mattress, something he wasn’t used to finding there. He opened his eyes as he propped himself over an elbow, and it took his sleep-numbed mind a couple of seconds to recognize that he was looking at a person’s back. And more specifically, at Adam’s back. He was wearing the same blue sweater from the day before, only now it was rumpled and the hem had rolled up from stirring in his sleep, revealing just an inch of pale skin.

Nigel raised a hand to shake the man into wakefulness, but he changed his mind immediately. He dropped it and let himself fall against the mattress, running a hand over his face to try to shake the remnants of his sleep. He stayed there, looking at the ceiling of his bedroom, but in the end his eyes fell over the form lying beside him, and he felt a lump in his throat.

What the hell was he doing? This man was probably the nicest and kindest person he had ever known, and yet there he was, fallen asleep in his bed because Nigel had asked him to read for him, because he had wanted to keep him there a little longer. Was he taking advantage of him…? Adam was taking care of him without expecting anything in return, but Nigel very much wanted to repay him, somehow. And he definitely hadn’t meant to take advantage of him, but what if that’s what he was doing, even if it was unintentionally? Nigel had found himself longing for the man’s company every single day, so was it so bad to try to spend more time with him…?

In that moment, Adam shifted and whined softly as he rolled over on his back. Nigel propped himself over his elbow again, and when he saw Adam’s sleepy face, he couldn’t help but to grin, a warm feeling tugging at his chest.

“Nigel?” the man asked in a raspy voice.

“Morning, Adam.”

“I’m not in my bed…” he said, looking around with half-opened eyes.

Nigel chuckled and nodded. “You must’ve fallen asleep while reading. I’m so sorry I made you stay.”

“But I wanted to stay,” Adam replied, and Nigel nodded.

“Okay…”

They stood still, Adam looking at his eyes for longer than Nigel remembered the man maintaining eye contact. And then, something occurred to Nigel.

“Hey, what do you think we go out today? I can’t remember the last time I was out of this damn apartment.”

“Well, you were out of it when- Ah.”

Nigel shook his head and Adam smiled, probably pleased with himself for having understood that he didn’t mean it literally. Nigel stood up from the bed, grunting a bit with the exertion. He heard Adam sitting on the edge of the bed and yawning before standing up, all while Nigel took new clothes from his wardrobe.

“Where do you want to go…?” Adam asked when Nigel turned to him again.

“I don’t know, wherever you want.”

The man pursed his lips, thinking. And then, his entire face lit up with a smile.

“I think I want to go to Central Park.”

“Okay, so let’s go to Central Park,” Nigel agreed, suddenly feeling better than he had in those weeks. “I’m gonna take a shower, we’ll have some breakfast and we’ll go. Deal?”

Adam’s smile widened while he nodded, still a little sleepy.

****

It was Saturday and the middle of June, the sun shining bright in the sky. All that meant that, when they arrived to Central Park, they found much more people than Nigel would’ve liked to. He had only been a couple of times to the park in the time he had been living there, but he knew it was huge. And still, as soon as they stepped in, they started walking by people running, families taking a walk, screaming children, tourists…

Nigel looked at Adam, who was walking beside him, looking around him with a blank expression but clenching and unclenching his hands at both sides.

“So... Have you been here many times?” Nigel asked the man, trying to draw his attention so he had something to focus on. Adam’s eyes shifted to his for a moment.

“Yes. I come here a lot at night, before they close, to look at the stars with my telescope.”

“Alright, so why don’t you show your favorite places to me?”

Adam smiled weakly, but he nodded. And so he did. Adam took him to see some of the most visited spots of Central Park, but he mostly guided him to the deserted places, explaining what it was, what certain statue or certain garden meant, and sometimes even the year in which it had been opened. Nigel listened intently to most of it, genuinely interested in what Adam was telling him with the excitement of someone who knew well what he was talking about and was happy to share it with another person. But still, he couldn’t help getting lost in the gleam of Adam’s eyes whenever he asked him a new question, or when they moved from a place to another, and Adam spotted the place he was taking Nigel to, so he grabbed his wrist to pull him towards it faster.

When they had been walking for a few hours, Nigel started feeling sore, and he came to a halt by a drinking fountain, Adam looking back with his eyebrows arched.

“Are you okay?”

“A little tired, darling…” he said, smiling at him to reassure him. “Tell you what, why don’t we go eat something?”

“In the apartment?” Adam asked, and Nigel straightened his back, grunting a little when the movement pulled the skin around the wound.

“Why don’t we go someplace instead? I’ll invite you.”

Adam seemed hesitant, and Nigel was about to tell him that they could go back and eat in one of their apartments, when the man nodded with a little smile on his lips.

****

When Adam was a kid, he couldn’t eat anywhere outside his home. His father tried everything and he simply didn’t eat anything there, or cried and covered his ears until they left. When he grew up, he found out that sometimes, he was able to eat in restaurants or places where he didn’t know the food, even if all he could think about while he was there was exactly that.

When Nigel suggested eating out, he had first intended to say he didn’t really feel like it, his mind already exhausted from so many emotions and stimulations that day. But then, he thought that this was almost like a date. With Nigel. And so he accepted, not wanting to lose that opportunity.

But now that they had chosen a restaurant near their building and Adam was shielded away behind his menu, he wished he had actually turned down Nigel’s offer, or better: that Nigel had suggested it any other day.

“Adam?”

He lowered the menu enough to be able to look at Nigel over it. The man was leaned backwards against his chair, and he was looking at him with his head tilted.

“Are you okay?”

“Uhm… I don’t know what to order,” he said, avoiding Nigel’s question because he didn’t want to lie to him.

“Ah.”

Nigel’s gaze lowered to his own menu, and he smiled then before looking up.

“What about number 43?”

Adam scanned his menu and looked for the number, and when he found it, he let his menu drop on the table while a smile curling his lips upwards.

“It’s mac & cheese.”

“Exactly!” Nigel said with a wide grin splitting his face in two.

Adam nodded again, but in that moment a waiter appeared beside them, and he flinched a little. The loud voices of all the people who were crowding the restaurant came back at him like a torrent, and he closed his eyes for a moment. He did _not_ , under any circumstance, want to have a panic attack right there, with Nigel, the first time they were doing something together outside their apartments. Adam focused on the feeling of the fabric of his jeans under his palm, and only when he saw the waiter leave, did he look up at Nigel again.

“I’m sorry…” Adam said in a whisper.

“There’s no need for you to apologize, Adam. It’s actually me-” he started saying, and he sighed as he leaned his elbows against the table. “I didn’t think of how it could be too much for you, I’m sorry.”

Adam wanted to tell him that it was okay, but he couldn’t find his voice, and so he just nodded. Nigel then started telling him about the things they had seen in Central Park, of how he had never seen gardens like those, and how he wished he had had a place like Central Park to go to back in Romania. Adam couldn’t help to think in that moment that Nigel was the most handsome man he had ever seen. Not that he didn’t know already, but seeing him out of the apartment and with the daylight coming through the glass and lighting up his ashen hair and his hazel eyes, it was even more evident.

Adam was so focused in Nigel, than when the waiter came, he just turned to look at the white plastic bag he left in the table, and he frowned.

“Your food to go, sir.”

Nigel gave the man a few bills and told him to ‘ _keep the change_ ’ before standing up and taking the bag.

“Let’s go,” he told Adam, nodding towards the door.

“Where?”  
“To the apartment. I asked them to serve us the food to go.”

“We can… we can do that?” Adam asked while he stood up, even if the proof was hanging from Nigel’s hand.

“Of course, darling. Come on.”

Adam followed Nigel out of the crowded place, and once they were out and walking on the sidewalk, he smiled. He knew Nigel had done that for him, and the knowledge caused a warm, ticklish feeling that spread from his chest and made him smile all the way from the restaurant to Nigel’s apartment.

When they made it there, they sat in the couch and ate on the coffee table with the TV as background sound, instead of on the tall table where they always ate. Adam couldn’t bring himself to stop smiling, feeling much better now that they were alone, in a space Adam had familiarized himself with in a short time.

When they finished the mac & cheese – which, Adam had to admit, was _very_ good, even if they tasted very differently than what he was used to - he stood up to clean the aluminum containers and glasses they had used, but Nigel raised his hand, and so he paused.

“Let me.”

“But-”

“I invited you, so let me clean the table, alright?” Nigel asked him with a soft smile on his lips, and so Adam nodded and sat back on the couch.

He heard Nigel moving around the kitchen, placing the glasses in the sink and throwing the containers out. Adam looked away from the TV and to the small shelves beside it, and he stood up and searched among Nigel’s books. He had obviously seen them during the times in which he had been there alone while Nigel was wounded, waiting until the man would stir from his sleep and Adam would bring him food and a pill. But now he read the titles, seeing some of them that were already familiar to him –even if he hadn’t read them, since they were fiction ones, and he preferred his science ones -, others that he had missed, and-

Adam froze with his hand brushing the spine of the book, and his jaw hanging open.

“Do you want me to change the channel? I gotta admit, this movie is pretty bad…” he heard Nigel tell him, but he wasn’t listening to him.

Adam got the book out of the shelf and turned around very slowly.

“Adam?”

He finally looked away from the book and towards the man, although not directly at him. Nigel was sitting on the couch again, but his posture was different from before. He was leaning forwards, his brow knitted and his eyes fixed on Adam. He was confused about Adam’s behavior, but Adam didn’t even know what to say. He walked from the shelf to his spot on the couch and looked at the book again when he sat.

“Oh god…” Nigel said then. “I- Fuck. I had forgotten that was there… Shit.”

Adam didn’t look up that time. Instead, he read the title once again: ‘ _Asperger's: The Ultimate Information Book_ ’.

“Adam… Are you offended?

“When did you buy this?” Adam asked, finally finding his voice. It wasn’t what he wanted to ask, exactly, but it was _something_.

“I went out the other day while you were at work and… Look, I haven’t even read it, it was a stupid idea.”

Adam finally, _finally_ looked up and fixed his eyes on Nigel’s. “You bought this because of me…?”

Nigel seemed taken aback with the question, so he opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before adjusting his position on the couch, shifting so he would be facing him, and lowering his head a little.

“Well… yes. But I just… I wasn’t thinking, I just thought- I don’t know. I guess I wanted to know more about you.”

Adam swallowed, his heart pounding inside his chest. And then, he leaned towards Nigel and pressed his lips against the man’s. Adam felt Nigel tensing at the contact, but when he moved his lips against his, Nigel’s moved too. Adam felt afloat, one of his hands leaving the book and moving on its own accord to curl his fingers in Nigel’s shirt.

It had been way too long since Adam had kissed anyone, but even so, he didn’t remember his kisses with Beth to feel _this_ way. He didn’t remember feeling his heart beating so quickly, a curious and not at all uncomfortable sensation in his stomach… And Nigel himself felt so, _so_ different. His stubble grazed Adam’s smooth skin, his lips were so gentle and yet firm, which was strangely comforting.

When he pulled slightly back, Adam felt Nigel’s breath against his moist lips, and he smiled. Adam wanted to do that again, and again, had wanted to do that for some time now. But instead, he leaned further backwards to look at Nigel, and in that moment the man moved abruptly back and stood up.

Adam swallowed and chased the man with his gaze as he walked backwards until he hit the shelf in which Adam had stood by only minutes before. Adam frowned, because he was sure that time he hadn’t misinterpreted the cues. Nigel was nice to him, he called him darling and looked at him like nobody else did; not like he was an imperfect, broken man, but as if he was… just Adam. He hadn’t gotten mad at him that morning when Adam had fallen asleep in his bed, he had gone with him to Central Park, invited him to a restaurant, and even had ordered the meal to go. Because of Adam. And now, the book…

“Nigel…”

“Sorry, Adam, I- I think I have to rest, I’m not… feeling too well. Yes, I’m gonna go. You can stay here a bit longer, do whatever you want, okay? I… I’m going to go.”

Adam didn’t even have time to react before Nigel dashed off out of the living room and into the hallway. A couple of seconds later, he heard the bedroom door clicking closed for the first time since Adam had started taking care of him.

Adam looked down at the book in his lap, and he set it aside slowly. It still took him a couple of minutes to stand up and get out of Nigel’s apartment. Once he was inside his own, he leaned against the door and let himself slide to the floor. The first tear rolled down his cheek as he buried his face on his knees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *covers her face* sorry to leave this chapter like that, but hey, you won't have to wait too long! :)
> 
> I've uploaded the playlist in 8tracks as I said, so [here](http://8tracks.com/starkaryen/odd-stars) you go :)
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH for all the support!!! <33


	5. Chapter 5

Nigel inhaled deeply through his nose, and then let out a long, faltered sigh. When he opened his eyes, he focused on the big 1A letters on the center of the door, and he finally raised his hand and knocked. As soon as he did, Nigel felt the need to go away, to run away into his apartment and hide once again in his room. But he stayed still, waiting for a moment, two…

When nobody came to answer the door, Nigel frowned and knocked again. Adam still didn’t appear, so he pressed his ear against the door, but there wasn’t a single sound inside. It was strange, because it was Sunday morning, so Nigel guessed Adam must’ve been finishing his breakfast, or reading curled up in his couch… No. What Adam should’ve been doing that morning was being in Nigel’s apartment, eating breakfast with him. But Nigel had fucked up, as he knew he somehow would do one way or another.

After sleeping like crap that night, he had given up way too early and rolled out of bed feeling heavy and miserable. He had spent a few hours wandering through his apartment, playing over and over the previous day’s events in his mind. Every time Nigel remembered the way Adam’s lips had felt against his, his heart sank into his belly, and every time he remembered the way Adam had looked at him when Nigel had moved away, he felt like trashing the entire apartment and hitting himself in the head for letting that happen.

Nigel had accepted at some point that he had feelings for Adam, for the sweet, kind man that had taken care of him and become something very close to his friend. But Nigel had also decided that he couldn’t do anything about it; Adam deserved much, _much_ better than a scoundrel like him. But as it turned out, it had been Adam who had done something about it. And Nigel hated himself for how he had reacted and the way in which everything had happened.

Nigel knocked a third time, and just in case, he took the doorknob and twisted it… and the door opened. Nigel felt the concern flooding him and making him light-headed as he pushed the door open slowly. His hand reached backwards automatically, but he didn’t have his gun there, hadn’t been carrying when Adam was around, even if the man knew perfectly the existence of it; after all, he had taken it from Nigel the night in which Adam had helped him. He cursed at himself as he went in and looked around. Nothing seemed out of place, but he still made it to the kitchen quietly, and picked up the first knife he found in the perfectly organized counter. When he went out, he started going to the hallway to look for him in the bedroom. And just then, he heard a clank.

He froze and tilted his head, not sure where the sound was coming from. He stood very still and then- another. And that time, it sounded like something hitting glass. Like something hitting…

Nigel retraced his steps into the living room, and then he saw him. There was someone dressed in a big, white suit, hanging from the roof and swinging in front of the wide windowpanes. And then, the white-suited form lowered a little more, and he finally saw the man’s face.

“Adam!”

Nigel’s shout made the man swing precariously from the rope holding him, and Nigel lurched towards the window. He left the knife he was holding on Adam’s coffee table, and then opened the window closest to Adam’s position. The man immediately swung even more, and Nigel held the giant white suit by the waist, pulling him inside. Adam undid the strap holding him to the cable, and then all his weight fell on Nigel, who staggered backwards until he placed Adam in the floor.

Nigel stepped back and brushed his hair back from his eyes to look up at Adam as he breathed heavily due to the exertion.

“Nigel…”

“Adam, what the hell were you doing!” he told him, seeing the unconcerned expression of the other.

“I was trying to clean the windows,” Adam simply responded. Like finding a man hanging from the roof in a New York building was a normal thing.

Nigel looked at the panes, and then back at the man. He raised both hands with the palms upwards.

“What the fuck for?!”

“I- I wanted to show you the stars tonight. To apologize.”

Nigel swallowed not knowing what to say to that. Finally, Nigel muttered, “What?”

“The windows are a little dirty, so I wanted to clean them to be able to show you the stars.”

“The windows…?” Nigel repeated like a parrot. He thought that maybe he _had_ hit his head at some point, because he used to be able to put more than two words together.

“Yes… I have a projector and I could show them to you there, but it’s not the same, and it needs some adjustments. And tonight the sky will be more clear, I checked, so I wanted-”

“Adam.”

Nigel raised his hands to touch his shoulders, but stopped midway and ran a hand across his face instead, sighing.

“You’re still mad at me, right?” the soft voice of Adam said then.

Nigel dropped his hand to look back at him, and he opened and closed his mouth a few times before huffing.

“Adam, I’m not mad, I was fucking worried about you,” Nigel said, this time a much more lower tone.

“Why?”

“Because I came into your apartment –which, by the way, you left completely open- and I saw someone hanging in your window!”

“But it was me, Nigel!” Adam said, pointing a hand covered by a huge sleeve at himself.

“I didn’t know!”

“Oh…”

Adam nodded, his eyes glancing around Nigel’s face. And then, Nigel felt like _really_ hitting himself in the head. Adam was flustered because of the effort, his hair rumpled, and he looked _so_ small in the giant suit – that now that Nigel noticed it, it was NASA’s. He looked so sad right in that moment and it was Nigel’s fault.

“Adam…” he started saying, but then he pursed his lips and gestured to his suit. “Why don’t you get changed so we can… talk?”

Adam nodded, and swung the window wiper in his hand as he made his way to the hallway, moving in awkward, clumsy steps because of the suit. Nigel bit his lower lip as soon as Adam had disappeared. He closed the window, took the knife back to its original place, and sat on the couch with a sigh. He felt like _such_ a piece of shit. Adam had risked his fucking life only because he wanted to apologize, because he had run away like the coward he was.

When Adam resurfaced wearing normal clothes, he sat beside Nigel, tense and upright. Nigel deserved that, of course, but it pained him anyway, missing immediately the easiness they had felt around each other in such a little time.

“Nigel-”

“Adam-”

They kept quiet at the same time, and then Nigel sighed. “You first.”

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I didn’t… I wanted to kiss you, but I shouldn’t have done it. I should’ve asked, even though I thought that you wanted to kiss me too. I thought I wasn’t mistaken this time, but I shouldn’t assume, and-”

“Woah there, hold on, Adam. You… you don’t have to apologize for anything,” he said, scooting over a little to face Adam. “And… and you weren’t mistaken.”

Adam _did_ shift at that, looking at Nigel in the eyes for a moment before lowering his gaze, but not looking away.

“I wasn’t?”

“No, Adam. I… also wanted to kiss you. _So_ much,” Nigel confessed to him in almost a whisper. But then he frowned. “But I can’t… we _can’t_.”

“Why?” Adam asked, and the honesty of his question almost ripped Nigel apart.

“Because... Adam, fuck.”

Nigel supported his elbows on his thighs, and he ran both hands over his face again. Why was _that_ so hard…? Nigel stood up abruptly, and he paced in front of the coffee table, opposite from Adam. He needed to explain to him why it was _such_ a bad idea, but at the same time, he didn’t want to lose the way Adam looked or beamed at him. And as soon as Nigel told him, he would surely lose it… As it should be. As it would rip him apart when it happened.

“Adam… Why did you help me?”

He knew he had asked that question before, and so he stopped and found a confused expression in Adam’s face.

“I… you asked me to, and I wanted to help you.”

“ _Anyone_ would’ve called the police if they found a half-dead man in their doorstep,” Nigel insisted, and then Adam’s brow knitted.

“Well, I didn’t want to! I don’t like the police, and you’re my neighbor and I liked you so I didn’t want to.”

Nigel froze at Adam’s sudden anger, and he didn’t move as the other sighed and got up. Adam approached him and stood next to him. Close, _so_ close, Nigel had to swallow before speaking again.

“Adam, you should be afraid of me, not _like_ me,” he told him.

Nigel regretted the words as he said them, but at the same time he knew this was what he had to do. Scare him away, and he would be safe. But safe from what…? From Nigel himself or the rest of dangers that surrounded him? Or both?

He looked down and wished he could sound more convincing. But then, he felt Adam’s fingers brushing his hand. Not exactly taking it, merely a caress, but Nigel couldn’t help his feet to move on his own accord towards Adam, as if the contact had bewitched him. Adam stepped back in turn, leaning his back against the part of the wall where there were no bookshelves, and Nigel caged him with both hands next to him. When Nigel looked up at those big, blue eyes that looked like they contained entire galaxies inside, he didn’t see a single hint of fear in them.

“Are you mad at me now?” Adam asked, barely a whisper. “I can’t tell if you’re mad. But if you are… are you mad because I’m not scared of you?”

“Of course I’m not mad, Adam, but… You _should_ be scared of me. You should get away from me.”

“Why?” Adam asked, again honest curiosity and nothing more. Nigel felt something feral clutch in his chest, a need to wrap Adam and not let him go, not ever. He had to remind himself to open his mouth and speak, almost at a loss of words after Adam’s question.

“Because… Because I’m a bad man.”

“Says who?”

“Darling-” he started saying, but he stopped, adjusting his hands beside Adam’s shoulders. “You found me in the stairs, bleeding to death with a knife wound. And I asked you not to call the police or an ambulance. That only happens to dangerous people who do illegal things.”

Adam shrugged then.

“I’m not stupid, Nigel, I know that.” Adam swallowed, his throat hitching, and his eyes moving up from Nigel’s chin, traveling across his lips, his nose and stopping in his eyes, looking at him for the longest time Nigel could remember. “But you haven’t done anything to me.”

Nigel frowned, because it was that simple. He hadn’t done anything to Adam, and in that moment, he realized he would rather die than hurting him in any way, or allowing another person to hurt him. It _was_ simple, and yet, Nigel still shook his head.

“What if I _do_ hurt you? What if I do it even if I don’t want to…?”

“Sometimes I hurt people too, even if I don’t want to. I used to hurt my dad, and I was difficult as a kid. And I hurt people sometimes when I don’t know what they mean, or when I am rude without knowing it…”

Nigel wrinkled his nose in a snarl, feeling again the fierce protectiveness taking over him. He imagined how people must look at Adam sometimes, wondering why he was so strange and not being as accepting as Nigel had been. He wasn’t sure he would be able to restrain himself if he witnessed it.

Nigel leaned forwards then, pressing his forehead gently against Adam’s in a gesture that surprised himself, even. The other made a soft sound, half a sigh and half a whine, and Nigel felt him clutching his shirt with both hands.

“Fuck those people, Adam.”

“It’s okay, I’m used to them by now. But we can do something,” he said, his voice dropping to almost a whisper.

“And what’s that, darling…?” Nigel asked without being able to help himself.

He moved back to look at him, and when he found a little smile curling Adam’s lips upwards, his heart raced in his chest.

“If you hurt me without meaning to, like the time you told me you didn’t want to go people watch with me, or last night when I thought I had done something wrong… Then I’ll forgive you,” he said, and Nigel frowned at the reminder of how he had hurt Adam. “And if I hurt you without meaning to, then you can forgive me, too.”

Nigel smiled for a second, unable to believe the creature between his arms, leaned against the wall.

“I wish it was that easy, Adam, but… I’m a fuck-up, I’m an awful person… I own a decent nightclub now, but I still do illegal stuff sometimes. I don’t manage the drugs part of the business, but there are times-”

“Like the night you got stabbed?” Adam asked, still not even a little scared or even concerned.

“Like that night, yeah. There are times in which I may have to do fucked up things…”

Adam frowned and paused for a moment, and then shrugged.

“Well, okay.”

“Okay?” Nigel asked, incredulous.

“Yes. I guess we all have our quirks.”

Nigel chuckled despite himself, and he shook his head at Adam copying his own words as he smirked.

“That’s not a quirk, Adam… Sometimes I do _really_ bad stuff. And I’ve done so many shitty things, especially when I was in Romania…”

Adam shrugged again, although he was more serious.

“That’s in the past. It happened before we met. If you don’t lie to me-”

“I don’t want to lie to you,” Nigel said hurriedly, because no matter what happened, he knew he didn’t want to lie to him. Not even if it resulted in Adam finally calling the police, as he should’ve done that first night.

“I don’t like drugs, and I don’t like doing illegal things, but if you don’t lie to me… I’m okay with it.”  


Nigel’s hands moved hesitantly then, cradling Adam’s neck. He should be moving away, going out of the apartment and leaving Adam alone. But the pull the man had over Nigel was stronger than him, and so he stroked the tight line of Adam’s jaw with his thumb, the skin covered in a light stubble. Nigel sighed as he leaned in slowly, giving Adam time to push him away.

“I’m still a bad person, Adam…” he said, Adam’s face starting to blur.

“I don’t think so.”

Adam’s hands gripped his shirt tighter right above his ribs.

“I’ve done bad things.”

Nigel tipped his head, his eyes closing on his own.

“I don’t care…”

He felt Adam’s breath against him and Nigel smiled right before pressing his lips against Adam’s. The first touch was tentative, Nigel sucking Adam’s upper lip and his fingers dragging to Adam’s neck and into his hair. But then, Adam parted his lips and deepened the kiss, and Nigel came apart, giving in completely.

The kiss from the previous night had caught him off guard, believing Adam was mad at him for buying a book about Asperger’s without telling him anything. But even if now he knew what was going on, he found himself completely astonished.

Nigel groaned into the kiss when licked into his mouth as he pulled him towards him, their bodies impossibly close, Adam’s mouth impossibly soft and firm, hot and demanding, driving him crazy and making him sane again.

Nigel felt himself setting alight, but in that moment, Adam pushed him a little, and that was all Nigel needed to pull back abruptly, looking at him alarmed as he fought to catch his breath.

“Nigel, do you… Uhm… Do you need to take things slowly?” Adams squirmed between Nigel and the wall.

“What?” Nigel asked, searching for signs that Adam wanted him to pull back, but not finding any.

“My last girlfriend told me she needed to take things slowly. I’m just wondering if you need that too.”

Nigel smiled, fingers burning with the desire to grip Adam’s curls and crash his mouth against his, but he restrained himself.

“I don’t need that, no. Do _you_ need to take things slowly? Because if you do it’s completely alright, Adam,” he added, but Adam gave him a smug smile then.

“No, Nigel I don’t. I’m asking because I’m sexually aroused.”

Nigel almost choked on his own saliva, and he laughed as he looked down, feeling shy and alight all of the sudden.

“Fuck, Adam…”

“What?”

“Nothing, just… I think you just turned me on even more,” he said, looking at him again and hoping he wasn’t blushing like a fucking teenager as he feared he was.

“I’m just saying the truth.”

“I know, darling. And just so you know…” Nigel pressed his hips against the other’s, and Adam made a soft sound. “I’m sexually aroused too.”

“Oh. You are…”

Adam smiled warmly then, looking down to where their bodies met, and he then raised both arms to wrap them around Nigel’s shoulders and kissed him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hate me for leaving this here... I had to xDDD
> 
> Tomorrow more!♥


	6. Chapter 6

Adam understood in that moment what the expression “being in heaven” meant. He knew he obviously wasn’t _in heaven_ , but he certainly felt like he was floating, even if he could feel the floor under his feet. Because when Nigel’s lips closed around his, and his tongue licked against Adam’s, he was sure he would’ve fallen if it weren’t for the two strong arms that circled his waist and the hands that cupped his ass to pull him away from the wall.

Adam groaned as his fingers grabbed a fistful of Nigel’s hair, pulling him towards what Adam’s lust-dazed mind thought was the hallway. He wanted, _needed_ to touch Nigel’s skin, to kiss him, to undress him. And for that, Adam wanted to be in his room, where he felt comfortable and there was a bed and everything they would need, even if the thought caused his stomach to flip at the realization of what they were doing.

Adam hit what could be the couch or the coffee table, and Nigel grunted and broke the kiss, so Adam pulled back to look wide-eyed at the place where Nigel’s almost healed wound would be under his shirt.

“Sorry,” he said breathlessly.

“No, no, darling, it’s okay.” Nigel gave him a playful grin then, and Adam felt his cock twitch inside his pants. “I would be lifting you up and carrying you myself if it weren’t for the stupid wound, believe me.”

Adam bit his lower lip and pulled completely back from Nigel. The other frowned for a moment, but then Adam offered him his hand, and Nigel took it without hesitation. Despite the gesture and Adam guiding Nigel through the hallway as slowly as he could, as soon as they walked into the bedroom Nigel’s lips were on him again, and Adam moaned as the man kissed a line along his jaw and down to his neck. But then, he remembered what he had thought about a few times already, on those occasions in which he had thought about Nigel and him in a situation like that, and so he pushed Nigel away. He gave him a questioning look, but Adam smiled again.

“You have to know… I’ve never had sex with a man,” Adam told him, his eyes roaming Nigel’s stubble and wanting to bite and rub his lips against it, but containing himself.

“It’s alright, Adam,” Nigel said, a wide, warm smile splitting his face.

“Okay…” he nodded, and Nigel leaned in again to plant soft kisses against his neck that made Adam’s stomach tighten. “I know how it works, though.”

“Hmmm, you do?”

“Uh-hum… I’ve seen it in the movies.”

Nigel was the one to move backwards that time, looking at Adam with his eyebrows raised. Adam knew that meant Nigel was surprised, but he wasn’t sure why.

“You’ve what?”

“Seen it in the movies. Pornos, Nigel,” he said, confused that he had to explain that to him.

“I- I see… Adam Raki, you’re full of surprises, you know?” Nigel told him, his brow twitching ever so slightly, but smiling again immediately.

“I’m not full of surprises, Nigel…” Adam said, chuckling and glad to know that the other didn’t mean it literally. “Have _you_ ever had sex with a man?”

Nigel made a pause for a second, and then he nodded. “I have. A long time ago. But we’ll go slow, and we’ll do it any way you want, okay?”

Adam’s brow furrowed slightly, and he bit his lower lip.

“What do you mean any way I want?”

“I mean exactly that…” he said, and he cupped Adam’s face with both hands. “If you want me on top, we’ll do it that way.” Nigel pressed his lips to his left cheek, and Adam’s lips stretched in a smile. “If you prefer to be on top, we’ll go that way,” he said, before moving to the right side of his face and pressing a kiss on the corner of Adam’s smile. “And if you don’t want to do that, we won’t. There’s plenty of things we can do, darling…”

And at that, Nigel kissed him again, sucking on Adam’s upper lip with such tender and care that Adam forgot for a second to reciprocate it. He stood on tiptoe as he kissed Nigel back, wrapping both arms around Nigel’s shoulders and pressing their bodies flush. Nigel groaned as he stumbled forwards until he found another wall to press Adam against, his fingers snaking down his sides and grabbing Adam’s shirt. When he pulled the garment up they had to break the kiss, and Adam missed the contact almost immediately. Once Nigel took the shirt off, Adam did the same with Nigel’s. He unbuttoned the light blue shirt with the brown dogs pattern on it –which he had seen him wearing a couple of times, and Adam loved - and he smiled when he finally pulled it down his arms, looking at the man’s torso.

“I like what you said, Nigel, but I can’t be on top,” he said without giving Nigel time to lean in again.

He chuckled and shrugged a little. “And why’s that, darling?”

“In the movies, the bigger man is always on top…” Adam said in a hesitant tone. He had seen a few of them, and they always were the same.

Adam wasn’t too small, and they were almost the same height, but he looked at Nigel’s broad chest, and knew there was a difference there. Nigel was muscular and slim at the same time, he was broader and his chest was covered in hair down to his navel. And Adam _loved_ it. But he knew his shoulders were narrower even if he wasn’t too skinny, and his chest was smooth and paler. He wondered if Nigel would like that about him too, every little thing that distinguished them.

“Adam… Those movies are just pornos,” Nigel said then, and he licked his own lips. “They’re not real, and they’re just fucking wrong. We can do _anything_ you want. Try one thing, the other, switch or none.”

The corner of Adam’s lips turned upwards at that, and he nodded.

“Does that mean you want to have sex more than once with me…?”

Nigel raised his hand and pressed his fingers to Adam’s stomach then, dragging them down to the waistband of his pants, and Adam’s breath hitched in his throat.

“Yes, Adam. A thousand times yes.”

Adam beamed at that, and then he pushed Nigel away before he was too lost in the man’s touches. He went to his wardrobe and searched into his underwear drawer. He took the two things he was looking for and turned to Nigel with the wide smile still in his lips.

“I bought this a week ago. I really wanted to kiss you, and touch you… So I did research, just in case,” he confessed, looking down to the unopened tube of lube.

After telling Nigel about his Asperger’s and seeing that the man’s behavior towards him hadn’t changed at all, Adam had started realizing his own feelings. The way his stomach clenched like when he had a stomachache but completely different, in a _very_ good way.

Nigel stared at the box of condoms and lube in his hands, and then, very slowly, he looked up with a blank expression that told Adam nothing, and for a second, he feared Nigel would reject him then. That he had done something wrong without realizing it.

“A week ago?” he asked, and Adam nodded. “You sneaky little man…” he said, taking both things from Adam’s hands and throwing them to the bed.

Adam knew then by the tone in Nigel’s voice that he didn’t mean it in a bad way. He knew it, too, in the way Nigel smiled at him. But he knew it mainly in the way Nigel looked at Adam in that moment, the same way he looked at him sometimes; as if he were a precious thing, someone worthy of worship. Adam had never felt self-conscious and he had never been shy with any of his sex partners. But never before had anyone looked at him in the way Nigel did it, and so in that moment he felt himself blushing. He looked down for a moment before sighing and stepping closer to Nigel, bumping their lips and bodies together and making Nigel walk backwards until his calves hit the foot of Adam’s bed. They fell together, breaking the kiss only the moment it took Adam to crawl over Nigel’s body, settling on all fours above him and kissing him again. When Nigel wrapped both arms around his back and pushed Adam so they rolled over, he laughed at the strange but welcomed feeling of a man’s body, of _Nigel_ ’s body, draped over his, pressing Adam gently against the mattress.

“I think… I think I want you on top first,” Adam decided then, his skin prickling in anticipation.

“Yeah?”

Adam nodded, and Nigel caught his own lower lip between his teeth before bending over. Adam felt like laughing once again when he felt Nigel’s stubble against his neck, but then Nigel kissed him over his pulse point, and the only sound that came out of Adam’s mouth was a soft whine. Adam tipped his head back and grabbed Nigel’s biceps as the other started drawing a path down his chest, pressing his lips over his breastbone and descending to his nipples. Nigel brushed the sensitive skin there, and when he pressed his tongue flush and licked a broad stripe, Adam squirmed as he tightened the grip on Nigel’s arms.

He continued going down after that, Nigel’s hands caressing over Adam’s middle, grabbing him as he pressed his lips over his ribs, above his navel, in the jutting bone of his hip…

Nigel raised his head when he reached the waistband of Adam’s pants, and he dragged his hands down until he took hold of them, but didn’t move them any further.

“Can I?” Nigel asked, and Adam nodded eagerly.

Adam sat up a bit before Nigel’s attentive gaze. He unbuttoned his own pants and pushed both that and his underpants down, lifting his hips and throwing them to the floor. Adam would normally feel horrified at leaving his clothes there, but he wanted Nigel’s hands on him even more, and the look Nigel gave him when he turned to him again was enough to make him forget about the clothes. Adam reached for Nigel’s pants, tugging at them. They both undid the lace on his pants and Nigel got out of the bed to drop both things too. And then, when he climbed onto the bed again, they were suddenly naked and breathless in front of each other.

Adam let his eyes drift from Nigel’s face to his hairy chest, down to his stomach and then he stared at his cock. It was so different than his own, the precome leaking from the uncut foreskin and darker and hairier than his own; exactly as every other part of Nigel’s skin. Adam looked up with a smile in his lips and saw that Nigel was also observing him, taking in every detail of Adam’s body with his tongue perched between his lips. The man looked up and sighed.

“You are exquisite, Adam…”

Adam lay down again as Nigel leaned in. The man put both of his hands on Adam’s calves, and he dragged them up in a gentle caress. When he reached his thighs, even if his fingers were travelling across the outside, Adam shivered with pleasure and felt his already hard cock twitching against his stomach.

“What did I ever do to deserve being here right now, with you…?” Nigel asked.

Adam didn’t know how to answer that question, but he didn’t have to, because Nigel’s eyes were hungry and his breath faltered, and it was all because of him. And that, Adam very much enjoyed.

Nigel bowed his head again and he pecked his stomach once more.

“Anything you don’t like, tell me and I’ll stop. Promise me,” Nigel said then, laying down between Adam’s knees.

“I promise.”

But in that moment, Adam doubted there was anything Nigel could do to him, any way in which he could touch him that Adam wouldn’t like. But still, when Nigel slipped his tongue out of his mouth and pressed it flat against the underside of his erection, Adam gasped and squirmed against the sheets. Nigel lifted his head wide-eyed, but Adam gave him a strangled chuckle.

“Do that again… please.”

Adam had seen people do that in the movies, but in the few relationships he had been in, he had never found a willing partner. So when Nigel smiled and shifted between his legs, Adam held his breath. Nigel took the base of his cock with one hand and then pressed his lips against it. He suckled along the underside and when he reached the head, he lapped at the precome before taking Adam into the heat of his mouth. Adam dropped his head back as he moaned loudly, and he arched his back when Nigel’s wet, hot mouth completely surrounded him. He closed his eyes and felt Nigel’s other hand grabbing his waist and holding him still. But Adam couldn’t stay still or quiet, because it felt so, so good. Adam groaned Nigel’s name as he opened his eyes and slid his fingers among the untamed strands of the man’s hair, dangling from his forehead as he lowered his head, taking more of Adam’s into his mouth. When Nigel sucked and hollowed his cheeks, Adam gripped the hair tighter unwittingly, and he tried to chase the warmth even as Nigel’s hand was pinning him down. The man pulled back with a wet sound, and he licked again a long stripe from Adam’s tightening balls up to the head. Adam curled his toes when Nigel took him again, and that time he swallowed him even deeper. Adam opened his mouth to tell Nigel he was close, so close that his eyes shut close and felt his stomach tightening, but he didn’t even have time to say anything at all. He came with a cry, spilling in Nigel’s mouth and his muscles loosening as the orgasm shook through him in waves. When the other pulled out, Adam looked at him with a little smile.

“Sorry…”

“What for?” Nigel asked, crawling over him and standing on all fours over him.

“I couldn’t warn you.”

Nigel laughed and bent over, but then stopped right before kissing him.

“Do you mind? Me, kissing you after… that,” he said, and Adam shook his head.

He took Nigel’s hair again and dragged him down to kiss him, and he tasted different than before, but not in a bad way at all. Adam pushed him and straddled him without breaking the kiss, but then he felt Nigel’s erection against his stomach, so he broke the kiss.

“Do you want me to do that to you?” he asked with a smirk, but to his surprise, Nigel shook his head.

“Maybe just your hand? I want you to kiss me…” he said as he nuzzled Adam’s neck.

Adam giggled at the feeling, and then he dragged his fingers across Nigel’s stomach until he gripped his cock. The man groaned and dropped his head against the pillows. Adam took a moment to get used to the feeling; it felt different, a little shorter than his own, but thicker. He pulled back the foreskin and spread the precome along his length, as he did when he was touching himself. Adam enjoyed the way Nigel swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat before he parted his lips again with a deep moan. Adam bent down again, leaving enough space between their stomachs to keep dragging his hand up and down, and then he kissed Nigel. Adam licked over Nigel’s lips and he reacted to the touch immediately by craning his neck and sucking on his upper lip. They kept kissing and Adam enjoyed every hoarse sound that he elicited from Nigel as he continued stroking him, changing the rhythm when he felt Nigel’s hands on his thighs, gripping and holding him. When Adam felt Nigel’s breathing growing heavier and writhing beneath him, he applied more pressure and Nigel came, moaning against the kiss.

They stilled with their mouths hovering but not meeting in a new kiss, their breaths blending and Adam feeling Nigel softening in his hand.

When he pulled back with a smile, Nigel wrapped his arms around him and rolled him over again. He got up and out of the bedroom and went to Adam’s bathroom, and when he reappeared he had a towel in hand. Adam stayed still as the other cleaned him with gentle wipes and then watched as he cleaned himself too. When Nigel climbed back, he fell onto the bed and Adam pressed himself against his good side, sighing as he wrapped his arm around the man. They smelled like sex, an intense but amazing scent that made him smile as he nuzzled into Nigel’s chest.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get to do anything else,” he told Nigel, and the other looked down to him with his eyebrow raised.

“Don’t be sorry, it was perfect, Adam. And we’ll have time to do much more…” he said, but then he wrinkled his nose as he shifted beneath Adam. “But maybe not now. I think I’ve overstressed the wound enough for one day.”

Adam let his hand fall from Nigel’s stomach to the place where the two scars streaked through his side. The bigger and long ago cured scar was a crooked line that crossed from beneath his underarm down to almost his hip. The smaller wound, the one Adam had helped Nigel with, was just a few inches between his ribs, and it joined the larger one as if it was a fork in a river. He felt the line of the new scar carefully, and then traced the longest one with his index finger.

“How did you get this one…?” he asked in a whisper. He had been curious about it, but the moment to ask him about it hadn’t presented itself.

Nigel sighed under him. “Years ago, in Romania. A deal that turned out very wrong.”

“Like this one,” Adam said, making a circle with his finger around the smaller scar.

“Yes… but even worse. I still don’t know how I didn’t die then.”

Nigel was quiet for a long time before Adam heard his voice again, and he kept drawing circles and lines around his side.

“I meant what I said before, Adam. I’m a fuck-up, and you _should_ kick me out while you can… I’m afraid I’m not strong enough to get away from you.”

Adam shifted to look up at him, and he craned his neck to nuzzle Nigel’s nose with his before tilting his head and kissing him.

“I’m not going to kick you out, Nigel.”

He saw the smile in the man’s lips, so Adam tightened the embrace around him.

****

They spent that day together, as they would’ve done in a normal day since the moment in which Adam had started taking care of Nigel. But that day was different. Because that day, Nigel leaned in to kiss him every time he felt his heart clutching while looking at that impossible man. And that day, Adam’s hands held Nigel’s shyly twice after having dinner in Adam’s apartment. And then they went to sleep, Nigel hugging the man from behind and feeling him slowly falling asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left!!! Aaaah these two, they killed me while writing this ^^
> 
> Also, hannibalwasherex made [this gorgeous gifset](http://hannibalwasherex.tumblr.com/post/147066820477/i-tried-to-make-the-scene-from-starkaryen-fic) of the scene in Chapter 5! *__*


	7. Chapter 7

Nigel woke up alone in bed. He stretched and yawned as he rubbed his eyes, but then he suddenly jerked up and looked around drowsily, realizing where he was and the fact that Adam wasn’t beside him. He saw the man’s pajama neatly folded over the chair in the room, and remembered that it was Monday, so Adam probably had gone to work. Nigel let himself fall back over the mattress with a sigh of relief.

When he got out of the bed, he made it and then he had an idea. Adam usually arrived in the afternoon when he had work, so he busied himself all morning tidying both Adam’s and his house. After a quick lunch, he went out and bought things to make dinner. Nothing too strange for Adam, but still something different: grilled chicken with mozzarella and green beans as a side dish.

After taking a shower and trying out at least six different outfits and choosing a cream-colored shirt and dark slacks, he went to the living room to wait. He grew restless when the time in which Adam usually arrived came and still there was no sign from him. He tried to watch TV and read without being able to focus on anything. In the end he just gave up and started cooking, hoping the man would make it before the meal was cold.

He was putting the vegetables right next to the chicken slices when he heard the door to his apartment being unlocked, and so he went to the living room with the two plates in hand. Adam was frozen in the entryway still holding the doorknob, and Nigel left both plates in the already set table at both sides of the unlit candle he had found searching through the boxes of things he never used.

Adam’s eyes were fixed on the table, and after a long moment, Nigel cleared his throat and approached him, touching nervously the cuffs of his shirt.

“Hey gorgeous…”

Adam’s eyes finally went to his, and Nigel smiled at him as he tilted his head.

“You prepared dinner,” Adam said, and Nigel nodded.

“I did. I was waiting for you.”

Adam’s face remained a blank mask as he finally pushed the door closed and moved to leave his messenger bag in the couch.

“You made all of this for me?” Adam asked, his eyes going from the steaming food and back to Nigel’s chin.

“Of course.”

Adam smiled a little then, and Nigel bit his lower lip. He took a couple of hesitant steps towards him and bent to give Adam a kiss. He leaned in slowly, because he suddenly wasn’t sure if he was allowed to do that, to just greet him with a kiss after only having shared what they had shared the day before. But Adam not only received him willingly, he also pressed into the kiss. Nigel felt Adam’s fingers gripping his shirt and pulling him closer as he opened his lips and licked into Nigel’s mouth. What had started as a chaste kiss developed very quickly into Nigel groaning as Adam deepened the kiss even more. Nigel pushed Adam backwards until he found a surface to press him against and support himself, which turned out to be the console table. The vase he had put there in hopes that the apartment looked like an actual home tottered and threatened to fall until Nigel caught it to stabilize it without breaking the kiss with Adam. But then, Adam pushed him away with both hands over his chest and gave a little moan as he swallowed and looked up at Nigel’s eyes.

“I- thank you for making dinner. But… maybe we could… Maybe we can skip-”

“Yes,” Nigel said quickly, and he cupped Adam’s face to keep kissing him on his chin, his jaw, his neck... Adam chuckled and shook his head, but didn’t push him away again.

“You didn’t let me finish! Could we skip dinner…? Or leave it for later? Because… I’d rather kiss you and touch you right now, Nigel.”

“Yes Adam, yes. Fuck dinner,” he said pulling back to look at him, and Adam gave him a wide smile, white teeth shining like the moon in the dark sky.

But then Adam pushed him again, and this time completely away. He freed himself from Nigel’s embrace, opened the apartment’s door and went out, all in the blink of an eye. Nigel stood frozen where he was as he tried to catch his breath and stared at the half-open door, not sure he understood what had happened. He was just starting to move when Adam reappeared as breathless as he was, his eyes gleaming with excitement, and the lube and box of condoms they hadn’t gotten to use the day before in his hand. And so Nigel laughed as he grabbed Adam’s waist and pushed the door closed.

“You filthy angel…”

Nigel already knew Adam well enough to know what he was going to say when he opened his mouth: that he was not an angel. And so, Nigel closed the distance again and kissed the man before he could speak, enjoying the way he groaned against Nigel’s mouth before parting his lips and wrapping both arms around his shoulders.

They staggered through the hallway peeling off each layer of clothing between them. When they made it into the bedroom, Adam left the things on the bedside table, and then he returned to him and reached out to unbuckled Nigel’s pants as he nipped at his bottom lip. Nigel heard himself moaning as the only thing he could do was answer the kiss and let the other pull his pants down. And then, Adam just reached into his boxers and grabbed Nigel’s cock. He grunted and he bucked his hips into Adam’s fist as his erection grew in the man’s palm.

“Fuck, Adam…” was everything Nigel managed to say.

Adam grinned as he pulled a little back, and gave him the most mischievous look.

“Is that okay?”

“More than okay, believe me,” Nigel assured him breathlessly.

Adam kissed him again as he stroked him up and down a few times, his fingers feeling impossibly good. After that, Adam pulled Nigel’s underwear down and freed his cock. Nigel broke the contact to take off everything from around his ankles, and then he took Adam by the hips and pushed him towards the bed. But before they hit the mattress, he stopped and knelt before Adam. Nigel undid his pants’ buttons and pulled them down hastily, but once he had thrown the garment across the room, he stared at the hard line of Adam’s cock against his white briefs, and Nigel felt his cock twitching between his legs. He grunted as he grabbed Adam’s hips again and leaned in to press his lips against the fabric, sucking as he heard Adam’s open moans. Nigel made himself pull back, because that time he planned on actually going further, and so he turned Adam around with the grip on his hips. He pulled the briefs slowly down, letting the clothing reveal the perfect round shape of Adam’s ass cheeks. Nigel couldn’t help but to lean in to nip at the rounded meat, Adam whining above him but clearly not from pain.

When Nigel finished undressing Adam, he stood up and grunted at the pull on his wound that the movement caused. He kissed Adam’s spine and his nape, and then the other climbed Nigel’s bed and turned around to meet his eyes with a knowing smile. Nigel caught his own lower lip between his teeth as he took in Adam’s breathtaking nakedness, the man’s pinkish cock lying hard between his legs, a soft patch of darker hair circling it.

Adam licked his lips and squirmed on the mattress when Nigel didn’t move, and so he finally reacted. He climbed onto the bed and crawled over Adam, encircling his waist with an arm as he kissed his reddened lips again. Adam slumped over the mattress, so Nigel started kissing his neck, enjoying the way the man’s skin was already flushed down his chest. Nigel remembered the beautiful sounds Adam had made the day before, and he wanted to hear them again, to please him and make him moan his name. And so, when Nigel descended to Adam’s nipples, he gave him a tentative lick first. Adam twitched upwards, chasing the contact, and Nigel didn’t deny him at all. He wrapped his lips around the nub and sucked, eliciting a strangled cry out of Adam’s throat. Nigel lapped at him with a broader lick, and then he paid the same attention to the other, grabbing Adam’s sides but letting him squirm and move as he pleased.

Nigel looked up and grinned at the sight of Adam panting, his stomach going rapidly up and down, and his unruly curls pointing in all directions. Nigel straightened to crawl over him, but then he felt another pang of pain across his side, and he snarled as he rested his weight against the good side.

“Nigel?” Adam asked, sitting up.

“I’m fine, darling. But maybe…” he said, and he chuckled. “Maybe I’m not going to be able to be on top this time.”

Adam’s smile returned to his lips slowly as his eyes roamed Nigel’s wound.

“It’s okay. I researched how to properly prepare a sexual partner so it’s pleasurable for both of us,” Adam informed him as if he had memorized those words. “And you can tell me how I’m doing, what to do and what not to do.”

Nigel laughed again before cupping Adam’s cheek with a hand, stroking his damp curls back and pressing their faces close, their noses bumping together before he tilted his head and kissed him again.

Nigel wanted to ask Adam if he was real once again, but he even forgot how to breathe when the man pushed him gently down to the mattress and got on top of him. Adam straddled his thighs without breaking the kiss, and then Nigel felt the other’s hand palming his erection once again. He gasped against Adam’s lips, and then Adam pulled back and crawled backwards. Nigel observed as he made him sprawl his legs and settled between them. But it wasn’t until Adam grabbed his cock again and he pressed his lips against him, that Nigel didn’t fully realize what Adam intended to do. Nigel groaned as his stomach clenched and he dropped his head against the mattress at the amazing sensation. He felt Adam’s tongue running from the point where his own hand curled up to the head, pulling back the foreskin and burying Nigel’s cock into his mouth.

“Oh, God,” Nigel muttered.

He arched his back and reached down to cup the crown of Adam’s head. Nigel closed his eyes and opened his mouth, but no sound came out as Adam went down again, taking more of him that time and bobbing his head few times, each of them slowly sucking as he went upwards. Then, when Nigel thought he couldn’t feel any more things at the same time, Adam suddenly pressed what felt like his thumb over his perineum, and he started massaging his prostate from the outside. Nigel gripped Adam’s curls as he sank his heels into the mattress. He ran his free hand over his face while Adam continued taking him into his heavenly mouth, an orgasm starting to coil inside him.

“Shit Adam, s- stop or I’m gonna come right now.”

In answer, Adam pulled out with a wet sound and gave him a proud smile as he straightened over him.

“I like the way you taste,” he said, and Nigel had to fight again not to come at his words, because Adam had the most innocent expression as he said that without any shyness at all.

“Fuck… I’m glad,” he said with a breathless laugh. “Holy _shit_ Adam, how much research have you done?”

“A little bit,” Adam said with a shrug as he stood over him on all fours. “I wanted to do this right.”

Nigel put both hands on his waist and he pulled him down, their hips meeting. Adam gasped, making a circle with his pinkish lips before Nigel brought their mouths closer to kiss him again, licking into his mouth as he rocked his hips up to repeat the friction.

Adam nuzzled Nigel’s chin, and then he looked at him through his impossibly long eyelashes.

“Do you want… Hmm,” Adam started asking, “to have sex now?”

“What have we been doing until now, darling?” Nigel asked, enjoying the way _that_ seemed to color Adam’s cheeks a little. Not the act in itself, as it seemed Adam wasn’t ashamed of anything in bed, but of saying the word.

“No, Nigel, I mean… You know. _Intercourse_.”

Nigel nodded, and he dragged his hands down until he grabbed Adam’s ass cheeks.

“Yes. _Fute-mă_ , baby,” he pled him in Romanian, with a smile.

“What does that mean?” Adam asked, curiosity clear in his inflexion.

Nigel grinned, and he rocked his hips if only to see Adam’s face contorting again with pleasure.

“It means _fuck me_ ,” he whispered.

Nigel enjoyed seeing the blush spread to Adam’s neck as his smile widened, and then the other closed the distance to kiss him again. Nigel let go of his hold when Adam stretched out to take the lube, and then he adjusted his position on the mattress, putting a pillow under his hips to lift them up and make his posture more comfortable for the wound. Adam opened the cap and poured a little bit of it into his fingers, observing it and feeling it between his forefinger and thumb. Then, he looked at Nigel again.

“Take more. Don’t be afraid of pouring a lot; there’s never too much lube,” he told him as he bent his knees.

Adam took much more and looked between Nigel’s legs tilting his head. When he crawled over Nigel again, he let out a long breath, relaxing his muscles before Adam pressed his fingers over the taut muscle; hesitantly at first, but then purposefully spreading the lube as he massaged him. Nigel focused on Adam’s face, the concentration painted in his features, in the way his eyes were fixed in his own fingers, the way his lips were slightly parted and his breath faltered as if he were holding it. Nigel reached out to take Adam’s free wrist and he pulled him closer. The man blinked and settled over him as he continued the massage. And then, the first pad finally pressed inside, and Nigel’s breath hitched as he tightened his hold on Adam’s wrist.

He hadn’t lied to Adam; he had had sex with men when he was younger. But he had always been the one who had fucked the other, and he had never considered it the other way around until Adam. Until he had told him in that little voice that he couldn’t be on top, and Nigel had wanted to burn the whole world for making Adam believe that. And now, with Adam on top of him, Nigel smiled and knew he didn’t want to be anywhere else in the entire fucking world but here, with sweet Adam carefully working his fingers slowly in and out of him, with the same care he had used when he had looked after him as Nigel recovered.

“Another, Adam,” Nigel asked the man when he knew he was ready.

The other understood his request, so he pulled out to add more lube, and when he pressed inside, he did it with two fingers this time. He repeated the movements he had done with the first, and he surprised Nigel by scissoring and opening him even more. Then Adam crooked both fingers up and Nigel’s dropped his head back as a wave of pleasure shook his entire body.

“Oh, fuck.”

“Did that hurt? I read that it’s supposed to feel-” Adam said, worry taking over his face as he started drawing his fingers back.

“No, no, Adam, it’s… It feels fucking amazing, don’t stop,” he clarified.

Adam smiled and bent over to kiss him as he resumed the massage. Adam added a third finger, and he maintained the slow but determined rhythm, only seeking Nigel’s prostate from time to time as Nigel tried to kiss Adam, but ended up mostly panting against his lips.

When Adam pulled back Nigel groaned at the absence, so he made Adam sit on his heels and he reached to take a condom out of the box. He tore the wrapper with his teeth and straightened to take Adam’s cock in his hand. He let out a moan as Nigel stroked him a couple of times, and then he put the condom on Adam himself. Nigel wrapped an arm around Adam’s waist to pull him closer, and they kissed as he leaned onto the mattress again with Adam blanketing him.

Nigel aligned Adam with him, and then the man broke the kiss to look at him in the eyes before starting to slowly push forwards. Nigel held his breath at the feeling, and he didn’t look away from Adam’s eyes. But then the man stilled halfway into him, and Nigel let out a long moan.

“Don’t stop,” he asked him in a breathless whisper.

Adam continued to push into him until he was completely buried inside, and so Nigel tightened his embrace around him, moving his knees until they were pressed against Adam’s hips and thighs.

They stayed still for a long moment, only hearing their heavy breaths and both of their eyes roaming each other’s faces. Nigel then craned his neck and brushed Adam’s lips with his, but didn’t close them in a kiss, not yet. He felt Adam panting against his lips, and he nuzzled into Adam’s nose before finally slipping his tongue out and into Adam’s mouth and kissing him as he rocked his hips. Adam moaned into the kiss and Nigel rumbled as they both started moving in unison, Adam gently going in and out of Nigel in slow, deliberate thrusts.

When Adam straightened a little and his thrust met Nigel’s prostate, he dropped his head backwards with a low sound coming out of the deepest part of his chest.

He felt Adam burying his face into the crook of his neck as he also moaned with every breath, accelerating the rhythm. But still, Nigel wanted – _needed -_ more.

“Harder...” he asked him in a raspy voice.

Adam tipped his head and pressed his lips against Nigel’s neck over his pulse point while Nigel slid his hand to grab at the curls on Adam’s nape, feeling his hot breath hitting his skin. Adam thrust into him harder, the bed banging against the wall. But Adam didn’t stop, and it was the last thing Nigel wanted.

He slid his own hand in between their stomachs and gripped his aching cock while Adam pounded against him, and all the while he was still the most delicate creature he had ever seen. Adam’s body rippled over his, Nigel feeling the muscles on his back bending and flexing with each movement under his other hand.

Nigel felt Adam’s breath growing even more ragged, his movements erratic and his moans deeper, and so Nigel tightened his hold around his own cock. Adam came with a cry that reverberated in every part of Nigel’s body and soul, and it elicited his own release. It hit him like a jolt, Nigel holding Adam even tighter against him as he felt his orgasm rippling in waves from his stomach down to his toes.

When Adam slipped out of him, he rolled to the side and collapsed against Nigel’s chest. They lay there for a moment, their rapid hearts slowing down as they gulped to be able to breath normally again.

And then, Nigel laughed. Adam moved for the first time, looking up at him with a questioning look and his dark, messy hair hanging on his forehead.

“Sorry darling. It’s just… you’re so fucking amazing.”

Adam smiled timidly at the praise, and Nigel used that to push him with his mouth in a quick kiss. He got up the bed to go to the bathroom as Adam took the condom out and threw it in the bin next to the bedside table. When he came back with a dampened towel, he cleaned his mess from Adam’s belly, and then from his own.

Nigel threw himself onto the bed after that, Adam curling against his good side. Adam started brushing with his fingertips a path around the place where Nigel had his pinup girl tattoo, outlining the shape.

“Nigel…” Adam’s soft voice spoke after a pause.

“Hmm?” Nigel answered drowsily.

“What’s gonna happen when you’re fully recovered?”

He opened his eyes and looked down to Adam’s big, blue ones, who were already roaming across his face as he lowered his hand to curl his fingers in the hair of his chest.

“What do you mean?”

“Well… you’ll get back to work, right?” he asked, and Nigel nodded, not sure where Adam was going.

“Yeah. I actually should’ve returned already, I’m well enough to be there helping Darius out. Why are you asking that?”

Adam lowered his gaze further, and he pursed his lips.

“Will we stop eating together in each other’s apartments?”

Nigel huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “Darling, no. Why would we?”

“I don’t know. We’ve only talked about sex, but I… I’d really like to be your boyfriend.”

Nigel’s heart tightened at his words, and he felt like surrounding him and protecting him from every fucking thing in the world, including himself. He sat up, dragging Adam with him, and he cupped his face to look into his eyes, even if Adam’s were locked in Nigel’s chin.

“Adam… You saved my life without asking for anything in return. Nobody had ever done anything like that for me… and for that I’ll always be in debt with you.”

“I don’t-”

“But,” Nigel interrupted him, guessing that Adam was going to say that he didn’t want anything in return, and Nigel knew that already. “Even if you hadn’t… It doesn’t matter, because I _want_ to be with you. I told you that you shouldn’t want to be with me, and if I were a better person I would go away and leave you alone. But I can’t do that, because I… I like you too much. I like all of you, every single part and every single _quirk_ ,” he said, and Adam smiled, getting the reference. “I’m not going fucking anywhere unless you want me to.”

“I don’t want you to go anywhere, Nigel…” Adam said putting his hands over Nigel’s forearms.

Nigel pulled him closer again to kiss him, and then he embraced him because he wasn’t entirely sure the man wasn’t going to disappear from his fingers, that he wasn’t going to wake up still wounded in bed, Adam being a drug-induced creation of his mind.

“Hey,” he told Adam a he pulled back, and the other looked him in the eyes this time. “Dinner will be cold by now, but… Why don’t I prepare a couple of sandwiches and you show me those stars of yours?”

Adam’s face lit up with a wide smile.

****

That night, Adam and Nigel looked at the stars in Adam’s apartment. They opened the window, since it was still dirty, and Adam showed him the stars that the New York sky let them see on that clear night.

But Nigel couldn’t help to look mostly at the man beside him rather than at the telescope. He wondered, once again, what had he done to deserve that. What he had possibly done to stumble upon his own lucky star.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has read this fic during the wonderful #SpacedogsSummer, to everyone who left me a comment or told me something on twitter, or just left a kudo. THANKS♥♥
> 
> ETA. Fanfic [aesthetics post](http://starkaryen.tumblr.com/post/147148556178/odd-stars-spacedogs-fanfic-it-was-supposed-to-be) :)

**Author's Note:**

> \----
> 
> All information + links about my writing are [here](https://about.me/mizumohno).
> 
> Say hello to me @ [twitter](https://twitter.com/mizumohno) and [tumblr](http://starkaryen.tumblr.com/) :)


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